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Study: Many gout patients on urate-lowering therapy do not know their treatment goals
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A recently published study of gout patients undergoing urate-lowering therapy revealed 14% of patients knew their treatment goals, despite many patients having high levels of other treatment knowledge.
“[W]e found that a very low proportion of gout patients receiving [urate-lowering therapy] ULT know their treatment goal,” Brian W. Coburn, PhD, from the Veterans Affairs Nebraska, Western Iowa Health Care System and University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and colleagues wrote in their study. “This information provides insight into one broadly untapped pathway to improve the widely reported suboptimal outcomes in gout.”
Brian W. Coburn
Coburn and colleagues evaluated questionnaire results from 612 patients with gout treated with urate-lowering therapy and prescribed a minimum of one allopurinol prescription in a 1-year period at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Patients were asked questions about their gout-treatment knowledge and investigators assessed patients’ self-reported health outcomes and scores on the patient activation measure. The survey response rate was 62%.
Although 14% of patients who responded said they knew their serum urate goal, the researchers found most patients answered correctly regarding five other gout-treatment knowledge question areas. While the serum urate goal was associated with self-reported global health status, researchers noted it was not associated with self-reported quality of life or gout-specific health status. Patients with a rheumatologist as their initial prescriber and patients who responded correctly to the five gout-treatment knowledge question areas had an increased likelihood of knowing the serum urate goal (odds ratios of 3 and 2.1, respectively), according to the abstract.
“More research on prospective strategies to incorporate [serum urate] SU goal information into efforts in shared-decision making, quality improvement projects, self-management programs, or educational materials in gout is needed,” Coburn and colleagues wrote in their study. – by Jeff Craven
Disclosure: Healio.com was unable to determine whether Coburn has any relevant financial disclosures.
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