The effect of an educational intervention in family phisicians on self-rated quality of life in patients with medically unexplained symptoms
Article Category: Original scientific article
Published Online: Feb 26, 2017
Page range: 91 - 98
Received: May 09, 2016
Accepted: Sep 02, 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/sjph-2017-0012
Keywords
© National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Introduction
Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are very common in family medicine, despite being a poorly-defined clinical entity. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of an educational intervention (EI) on self-rated quality of life, treatment satisfaction, and the family physician-patient relationship in patients with MUS.
Methods
In a multi-centre longitudinal intervention study, which was performed between 2012 and 2014, patients were asked to rate their quality of life, assess their depression, anxiety, stress and somatisation, complete the Hypochondriasis Index, the Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale and the Patient Enablement Instrument for assessing the physician-patient relationship, before and after the EI.
Results
The mean values before and after the intervention showed that after the EI, patients with MUS gave a lower (total) mean rating of their health issues and a higher rating of their quality of life, and they also had a more positive opinion of their relationship with the physician (p<0.05). However, there were no differences in the (total) rating of treatment satisfaction before and after the EI (p=0.423). Significant differences in the symptoms in patients with MUS before and after the intervention were confirmed for stress, somatisation and hypochondriasis (p<0.05).
Conclusions
It could be beneficial to equip family physicians with the knowledge, skills and tools to reduce hypochondriasis and somatisation in MUS patients, which would improve patients’ self-rated health status.