OBJECTIVES

: to investigate the demand of the current situation and demand for patient education of rheumatoid arthritis.

METHODS

: Demand survey of rheumatoid arthritis patient education was conducted with rheumatoid arthritis patients and rheumatologists. A total of 19 hospitals participated in the patient's survey and 746 patients were included in the final analysis. Demand survey with rheumatologists was conducted with those who are the members of Korean College of Rheumatology. A structured questionnaire was emailed. A total of 165 rheumatologists responded to the survey.

RESULTS

: The proportion of patients who previously had rheumatoid arthritis patient education was 29.4%, and of them, patients who participated systemic education program conducted longer than 4 weeks were 7.4%. The majority of the patients (86.4%) replied that patient education is ‘needed’ or ‘much- needed’ and 80.4%. Forty rheumatologists (24.2%) said that Rheumatoid arthritis patient education is currently conducted ‘at least 5 minutes’ and 22 of them (13.3%) admitted they do not deliver patient education program at all. The majority of them (92.7%) responded that patient education was ‘much-needed’ and the most important priority in terms of the education contents were ‘disease information’ followed by education about medication, exercise, injection and procedure, evaluation of disease activity and nutrition.

CONCLUSIONS

: Both rheumatologists and patients responded that the recognizing the needs for patient education in current health care system. However, the survey showed that the reality of clinical practice was too short and insufficient.