Savaş KARPUZ

Comments on: The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases

This letter contains a brief comment about the "The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases " that presented by Bozbas and Gurer. In this trial authors attracts the attention of the readers on patient education in a chronic disease. Study aimed to assess the level of disease specific knowledge of the patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were evaluated about the awareness level of patients, and the “Patient Knowledge Questionnaire in Rheumatoid Arthritis (PKQ-RA)” was used in this high-quality study. Firstly, studied internal consistency of the Turkish version of PKQ-RA was high with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.71. and according to the results most of the patients (86.7%) reported that they had gained the information about RA from their physicians. Age, education, socioeconomic status, and family history of disease were associated with the Patients’ knowledge levels. But in conclusion authors unnoticed a previous study titled as “The assessment of knowledge level about their disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis” and published by Karahan et al. In this earlier study authors firstly used the Turkish version of the PKQ-RA to evaluate the level of knowledge about the disease of patients with RA. Also, authors reported the very low level of knowledge. These two papers gain important contribution about the needs of the patient education. Patient education is important step of the treatment in the chronic disease and more clinical studies need especially from developed countries such as Turkey.

Keywords:

Rheumatoid arthritis, awareness, education treatment,

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Reference 1 Bozbas GT, Gurer G. The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients about Their Diseases. Anatol Clin 2018;1:12-18.
Reference 2 Karahan AY, Bagcaci, S, Salbas E, Erol K, Karpuz S, Kucuk A. The assessment of knowledge level about their disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. JCEI 2014;5:429-34