Comparative analysis of cooperation ‘factors for asthma patients

Abstract

One of the most important tasks of the up-to-date medicine is to achieve a high level of cooperation (compliance) between, a patient and healthcare initiatives. Majority of compliance evaluation methods are medical regimen oriented. Meanwhile a treatment progress is a complex of healthcare initiatives. Besides that at present time compliance evaluation does not consider availability of healthcare initiatives.
The target of this article is to analyze medical and social factors influencing the index of cooperation (IC) for asthma patients. IC is wider (than compliance) concept featuring level of a patient's desire and possibility to follow all doctor’s recommendations.
For IC evaluation ICBA-50 questionnaire was used. It contains 50 questions assessing IC in accordance with 8 main criteria. Seventy three asthmatic out-patients were involved in this study.
It was established that a total IC (TIC) for the asthmatic patients was 65.66±1.60%. The most strong TIC correlation (p<0.001) was revealed for the patients’ initial cooperation level (InC), comprehension of a danger (CD), a level of knowledge (KN) and a level of the patients’ satisfaction with the cooperation (S).
A positive correlation was determined between TIC and objective spirometry data: % FEV₁ and % PEF (p<0.05), and subjective asthma controllability level (p<0.01). A positive correlation was also defined between TIC and the patients’ age (pcO.001), gender (p<0.01), educational level (p<0.05), occupation (p<0.05), marital status (p<0.01), number of family members (p<0.01), family income (p<0.05), and number of family members suffering from asthma (p<0.05). A negative correlation between TIC and smoking index (p<0.0l), asthma duration (p<0.001), and asthma treatment expenditures (p<0.01) was established.
The current results allow to determine necessary doctor’s actions directed to the optimization of the cooperation with patients according to his medical and social status.