THE SURVEY OF PATIENTS’ PERCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING OF ORAL ANTICOAGULATION THERAPY Author: Fülöp Zsolt Zoltán, coauthors: Drágus Emőke, Elekes Andrea Henrietta University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of General Medicine 4 th year of study Supervisor: Dr. Gyalai Zsolt, assistant lecturer University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 4 th Clinic of Internal Medicine, Department of Cardiology

INR Ineffective treatment Increased bleeding

Aims To evaluate patients’ knowledge and understanding of oral anticoagulation therapy To survey how this treatment affects patients’ quality of life

We comprised patients who were at least one year on anticoagulant treatment regardless of the underlying disease or indication 4 th Department of Cardiology, Emergency County Hospital Tîrgu Mureş, during October 2014 and February 2015 on hospitalized patients Data processing: MS Excel item questionnaire Personal contact 117 patients Material and methods

Results 117 patients 57.3% males 42.7% females Mean age 70.2 years old Mean duration of the therapy 5.2 years 51.3% urban 48.7% rural Characteristics of the studied patients

Do you know what anticoagulants are?

Do you understand the meaning of the INR?

What to do in case of heavy bleeding?

Should treatment be interrupted before a medical intervention which could cause bleeding?

Do you take anticoagulants on a regular basis? Percentage of answers

Side effects

How did medical treatment and frequent blood sampling influence your quality of life? (1-5 scale) Percentage of answers

Not at all - How has anticoagulant therapy improved your condition? Quite a bit - Very much - Some - A little -

How much would you spend in addition to buy a new anticoagulation drug that promises better results? Percentage of answers

Most of the time patients perception of the therapy is insufficient, because of the lack of communication between physicians and patients Physicians and patients should pay more attention to this, in order to increase the efficiency of the medication and to decreas the number of side effects Conclusions

34% of the patients declared that they forgot to take their medication at least once a week More then half of the surveyed patients said that they would not pay in addition for a more efficient, INR control free anticoagulant respectively just 10% of the patients would pay the current price for a new type of anticoagulant. Conclusions

Thank you for your attention! Fülöp Zsolt Zoltán

My own contribution  Compiling the questionnaire  Interviewing the patients  Compiling a digital database  Data evaluation  Compiling the presentation