Comments on: The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases

Year 2018, Volume: 23 Issue: 2, 66 - 67, 23.04.2018

Savaş Karpuz

https://doi.org/10.21673/anadoluklin.397387

Cited By: 1

Abstract

This letter contains a brief comment about the "The Knowledge Level
of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases " that
presented by Bozbas and Gurer. In
this trial authors attracts the attention of the readers on patient education
in a chronic disease. Study aimed to assess
the level of disease specific knowledge of the patients with Rheumatoid
Arthritis. Patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were evaluated
about the awareness level of patients, and the “Patient Knowledge Questionnaire
in Rheumatoid Arthritis (PKQ-RA)” was used in this high-quality study. Firstly,
studied internal consistency of the
Turkish version of PKQ-RA was high with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.71. and according to the results most of
the patients (86.7%) reported that they had gained the information about RA
from their physicians.  Age, education, socioeconomic status, and family
history of disease were associated with the Patients’ knowledge levels. But in conclusion authors unnoticed a previous
study titled as “The assessment of knowledge level about their disease in
patients with rheumatoid arthritis” and published by Karahan et al. In this
earlier study authors firstly used the Turkish version of the PKQ-RA to
evaluate the level of knowledge about the disease of patients with RA. Also,
authors reported the very low level of knowledge.

These two
papers gain important contribution about the needs of the patient education.
Patient education is important step of the treatment in the chronic disease and
more clinical studies need especially from developed countries such as Turkey. 

Keywords

Rheumatoid arthritis, awareness, education, treatment

References

• Reference 1 Bozbas GT, Gurer G. The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases. Anatol Clin 2018;1:12-18.
• Reference 2 Karahan AY, Bagcaci, S, Salbas E, Erol K, Karpuz S, Kucuk A. The assessment of knowledge level about their disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. JCEI 2014;5:429-34