This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Disparity found between ulcerative colitis patients', providers' perceptions of disease
Health care professionals may underestimate the severity of ulcerative colitis symptoms and the condition’s impact on their patients’ quality of life, according to recent results.
Researchers administered cross-sectional, Web-based surveys to 775 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), along with 475 physicians and 50 nurses who treat patients with UC, throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland and Spain. Patients reported their symptom severity, flare incidence and quality of life (QOL), while physicians and nurses were asked to estimate their patients’ experiences.
More than half of patients (53%) reported moderate symptoms, and 32% indicated mild symptoms. Physicians’ and nurses’ estimates were comparatively lower (52% vs. 34% mild; 49% vs. 37% moderate, respectively), but similar for severe symptoms (15% for all three groups). Most patients (55%) indicated that their symptoms impacted QOL, while physicians estimated 35% and nurses 37% of patients had reduced QOL because of disease.
Patients and health care professionals (HCP) frequently indicated that urgency was the most problematic UC symptom (30% of patients, 36% of physicians and 58% of nurses), but patients more often acknowledged pain (25% of patients, 11% of physicians and 6% of nurses) while providers noted stool frequency (34% of physicians, 22% of nurses) as most troublesome.
Patients reported experiencing an average of 5.5 flares within the previous year, while physicians and nurses estimated 3.4 and 3.8 flares, respectively, for the same period. Stress was ranked as the most common perceived flare trigger among patients; health care providers ranked the natural course of disease as the primary cause. Estimates of symptom severity during flares also were higher among patients than providers’ estimations for stool frequency, urgency and frequency of blood in the stool.
“Results of this European and Canadian survey demonstrate discordance between patients’ self-perceived experience with UC and HCPs’ … estimates of UC disease burden,” the researchers wrote. “These differences could be addressed through improved communication between patients and their physician or specialist nurse [including more regular visits], and better patient education. As patients with other gastrointestinal chronic diseases may have similar experiences to those surveyed … the findings reported here may also be more widely applicable.”
Disclosure: See the study for a full list of relevant disclosures.