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129

EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF DIGESTIVE DISEASE CLINIC PATIENTS IN AN ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTRE

E Grace², M Thabane¹, U Chauhan³, T Harper³, D Armstrong^1,3
Division of ¹Gastroenterology and ³Intestinal Disease Research Program; ²School of Nursing, McMaster University, Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Patient education is an important aspect of health care delivery. It is a passage of information from health care professionals to help patients cope and manage their disease. We undertook a cross-sectional study to assess coverage of information needed by patients attending Digestive Disease Clinics at McMaster University Medical Centre.
METHODS: All patients irrespective of diagnosis attending the clinic from April to August 2005 were invited to participate in the study. A survey addressing patients' demographics, reason for clinic visit, medical history of their gastrointestinal problems with duration and their perceived educational needs was administered. Assessment of educational needs included topics on cause, diagnosis, treatments, management, diet, physical activity, heredity, community and family support and access to information were evaluated on a five point Likert scale ranging from not important to very important. Association between importance of information needs (categorized as not important to moderately important and important to very important) and type of disease, duration and severity of illness was tested using c² test of association. A measure of association was expressed as OR and their corresponding 95% CI. A two sided alpha 0.05 was used to assess the level of significance.
RESULTS: We report preliminary results of the study. A total of 688 patients (61% female; mean age 47.8±18.7 years) participated. One hundred and four (15%) reported having Crohn's disease, 40 (6%) had ulcerative colitis 64 (9%) gastroesophageal reflux disease, 61 (9%) IBS; the remaining 61% reported other gastrointestinal related illness. Sixty-six per cent of the total sample reported their disease as moderate to very severe and 62% reported having the disease for more than two years. Table 1 shows association between the importance of educational needs by type of disease, duration and severity of illness.
                                                        

Education needs	Disease, duration and severity	OR (95%CI) P
Disease diagnosis	Severity	2.06 (1.01, 4.23) P=0.045
	Duration	1.25 (1.07, 1.46) P=0.035
Disease heredity	Duration	1.50 (1.03, 2.16) P=0.036
	Ulcerative colitis	2.96 (1.12, 7.81) P=0.022
	Crohn's disease	2.28 (1.29, 4.03) P=0.004
Treatments	Severity	2.51 (1.36, 4.64) P=0.002
Coping	IBS	2.73 (1.13, 6.63) P=0.021
	Severity	2.47 (1.59, 3.86) P<0.001
Depression	IBS	1.87 (1.05, 3.33) P=0.033
Ways to relax	IBS	2.30 (1.19, 4.46) P=0.012


 CONCLUSION: Patient education concerning diagnosis, treatments and management is more important to those with more severe and longer disease duration.

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