Disease knowledge and treatment adherence among patients with thalassemia major and their mothers in Taiwan.
OBJECTIVE
The current study had three aims: (i) to examine disease knowledge in both thalassemia major patients and their mothers; (ii) to understand the relationships between disease knowledge and treatment adherence in thalassemia major patients; and (iii) to explore the importance of selected factors in predicting patients' knowledge about thalassemia major.


BACKGROUND
Patients with thalassemia major must be treated with life-long blood transfusions. Evidence suggests that patients with more knowledge/information about their illnesses adhere more readily to treatment schedules. However, there has been little evaluation of knowledge and treatment adherence in thalassemia major patients.


METHODS
A cross-sectional correlational survey design and purposive sampling were used. Thirty-two thalassemia major patients (mean age 17.5 years) and 32 mothers (mean age 40.5 years) were recruited.


RESULTS
On a scale ranging from 0-20, the average of the patients' disease knowledge about thalassemia major was 15.19 and the average of their mothers' disease knowledge was 16.44. The scores for the patients' disease knowledge about thalassemia major were positively correlated with follow-up visit adherence (r = 0.690, p < 0.001) and with desferrioxamine infusion adherence (r = 0.791, p < 0.001). 95.6% of variance in patients' knowledge was explained by a model that included mothers' knowledge (beta = 0.901, p < 0.001), follow-up visit adherence (beta = 0.084, p = 0.140) and annual household income (beta = 0.042, p < 0.387).


CONCLUSIONS
The positive association between knowledge and treatment adherence and factors of patients' knowledge indicate the need for systematic education for patients and caregivers to improve adherence to treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
Improvement of the quality of patient care, reinforcement of medical education and enhanced efforts by clinical staff to provide practical knowledge to patients with thalassemia major should significantly improve patient adherence to treatment.
Lee
Ya-Ling
YL
School of Nursing, National Taiwan University and Supervisor, Department of Nursing, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. yallee@ntu.edu.tw
Lin
Dong-Tsamn
DT
Tsai
Shu-Feng
SF
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D010349:Patient Compliance; D013624:Taiwan; D017086:beta-Thalassemia / Q000628:therapy*