Endocrine Abstracts

Background and aim: Polypharmacy is characteristic of endocrine conditions and patients who are satisfied and knowledgeable of their treatment have better outcomes. The aim of this study was to measure treatment satisfaction, knowledge and adherence in patients with a pituitary condition attending a Nurse-led Clinic.

Methods, sample and data collection: Data were collected using a postal survey between January and March 2010 and included a total of 262 patients. The questionnaire which was developed for the purpose of this study includes two subscales; i) the 18-item Satisfaction and Knowledge subscale with a 5-point Likert scale ‘strongly agree to strongly disagree’ and ii) the 8-item Adherence subscale with a 5-point Likert scale ‘never to always’ and a ‘not applicable’ 6th point for patients taking their medication on a weekly/monthly basis. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 19 for Windows.

Results: A response rate of 58% was achieved (n=152; 84 females and 68 males). Mean age was 42 years (S.D.=15.7; range=19–79). Mean duration of diagnosis was 16 years (S.D.=11.8; range=1–45). Patients were taking anything from 1 to 6 different medications for their endocrine condition (mean=2.6; S.D.=1.5) with almost a third taking between 4 and 6 medications. A high level of Satisfaction and Knowledge was reported (mean=3.8 (S.D.=0.7); items SUM=64.6 (S.D.=11.6) with scoring range 17–85). Similarly, patients reported high levels of Adherence to treatment (mean=4.1 (S.D.=0.8); items SUM=20.3 (S.D.=0.8) with scoring range 5–25).

Conclusion: The results of this audit emphasise the important role that the Endocrine Nurse plays in patient education and in achieving better treatment satisfaction and adherence.