The Knowledge Level of Turkish Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients About Their Diseases

Aim: This study aims to assess the level of disease specific knowledge of the patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Materials and Methods: A total of 225 RA patients were included in this study. Patients’ demographic and clinic data and information resources were recorded. In order to evaluate the awareness levels of patients, the “Patient Knowledge Questionnaire in Rheumatoid Arthritis (PKQ-RA)” was used. Results: The mean age and disease duration of patients were found to be 52.8±10.8 and 6.7±6.5 years, respectively. Most of the patients (86.7%) reported that they had gained the information about RA from their physicians. Internal consistency of the Turkish version of PKQ-RA was high with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.71 and test-retest intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.94. The total PKQ-RA scores were 15.1±12.6 (ranging: 0-27). Patients’ knowledge levels differentiated according to their age, education, socioeconomic status, and family history of disease. Discussion and Conclusion: This is the first study to investigate Turkish RA patients’ awareness levels of the disease. Having insufficient information about the disease has always been a general problem in RA patients. In this study, it was determined that the knowledge levels of our patients were not significantly high. Thus, to be able to increase the patients’ awareness, some individualized precautions should be taken by physicians