61. Educational needs of patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE) (118)

Claire Hale, Dame Kathleen Raven Professor of Clinical Nursing, School of Healthcare Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Co authors: Mwidimi Nodosi & Jackie Hill; Ade Adebajo
c.a.hale@leeds.ac.uk

Abstract:

Background:

SLE, a chronic autoimmune rheumatic disease, is characterised by symptoms of fatigue, joint pain, muscle aches, anaemia and general malaise. Patient Education is an integral part of the management of chronic diseases but insufficient attention is sometimes paid to addressing the individual educational needs of patients at particular times in the disease trajectory
(1). The Arthritis Educational Needs Assessment Tool (the ENAT)
(2) is a self-completed questionnaire which has just been validated for assessing educational needs of people with arthritis and help clinicians to focus education provision. The ENAT comprises 39 items grouped into 7 domains (managing pain, movement, feelings, arthritis processes, treatments, self help measures and support systems). This paper will present and discuss the following study undertaken in 2006/7 and funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign.

Aim

To use the ENAT to assess the educational needs of a group of patients with SLE, attending an outpatients clinic in a tertiary rheumatology centre in the north of England. Method This was a quantitative design recruiting a convenience sample of 144 patients who completed the ENAT while waiting to see their rheumatologist at the clinic. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis Tests were used to study differences of educational needs by age, gender and disease duration.

Results

The median age was 46 years and median disease duration of 7 years. Older patients had more educational needs than younger ones. Overall the educational needs of the patients were still high even after having the disease for 7 years. There were no significant difference of educational needs by age or gender.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that health care professionals should not only offer patient education to patients at the onset of their disease but should continue to assess and provide it throughout their disease trajectory.

Biography:

Professor Claire Hale is the Dame Kathleen Raven Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Leeds. The Dame Kathleen Raven Chair of Clinical Nursing was established in 1998 and Professor Hale is the first post holder. She is also a co-director of the Academic and Clincial Unit for Musculoskeletal Nursing ( ACUMeN) a joint venture between Leeds University and the local hospital the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS.Current research interests and activities include the, assessment of practice in nursing education, organisation of nursing, and the relationship between nursing interventions and nursing outcomes, particularly in the area of musculoskeletal nursing.