Psoriatic patients´ awareness of psoriatic arthritis

Teoretična izhodišča: Psoriatični artritis predstavlja kronično obolenje sklepov, ki se lahko razvije pred ali po pojavu luskavice ali vzporedno z njo. Bolniki velikokrat zaradi nepoznavanja bolezni ne prepoznajo in prepozno poiščejo pomoč zdravstvenega osebja. Pomembno je, da so tako kot bolniki z luskavico kot tudi tisti brez luskavice seznanjeni z boleznijo psoriatični artritis. Namen diplomskega dela je torej ugotoviti, kakšna je seznanjenost ljudi s tem obolenjem. Raziskovalne metode: Zaključno delo temelji na deskriptivni in kvantitativni metodi dela. V empiričnem delu smo uporabili kot inštrument raziskovanja anketni vprašalnik, kjer smo zajeli namenski vzorec, ki je zajemal 25 bolnikov z luskavico in 25 bolnikov brez bolezni luskavice. Zbrane podatke smo predstavili s programoma Microsoft Word in Microsoft Excel. Rezultati: Z izvedeno raziskavo smo ugotovili, da je poznavanje psoriatičnega artritisa med bolniki, v primerjavi z bolniki v kontrolni skupini, boljše. Večina anketiranih je največ informacij o bolezni prejela v zdravstvenih ustanovah in na spletnih straneh. Med bolniki z luskavico je predvsem dobra informiranost glede temeljnih značilnostih psoriatičnega artritisa, slabše pa je poznavanje natančnejših informacij. Tudi informiranost med bolniki v kontrolni skupini se je izkazala kot dobra, čeprav jih večina ne pozna psoriatičnega artritisa. Diskusija in zaključek: Bolniki z luskavico so dobro seznanjeni z boleznijo psoriatični artritis. Osveščenost glede bolezenskih znakov bi lahko bila boljša, saj le ti bolniku omogočajo, da bolezen lažje prepozna. Menimo, da bi lahko ozaveščenost ljudi izboljšali z zdravstveno-vzgojnimi gradivi in brezplačnimi predavanji.Theoretical background: Psoriatic arthritis is a chronic joint disease that can develop before the incidence of psoriasis, after the incidence of psoriasis or parallel with it. People don’t have enough knowledge about the disease and that is often the reason why patients cannot recognize it in time, and they search for medical help too late. It is important that patients with psoriasis and also patients without the disease are aware of psoriatic arthritis. That is why our purpose of graduate thesis is to find out the patients’ awareness of psoriatic arthritis. Research methods: Our final work is based on a descriptive and quantitative method of work. In the empirical part we used the questionnaire as a research instrument. We took purposive sample consisting of 25 patients with psoriasis and 25 without psoriasis. The collected data were then processed and presented with Microsoft Word and Excel. Results: With conducted research we found out that the knowledge of psoriatic arthritis was better among psoriatic patients. Most of the respondents have mostly received information about the disease in the medical institutions and on the websites. Psoriatic patients are well informed with basic features of psoriatic arthritis, but not enough with details of the disease. On the other hand, there is a positive fact that patients in control group had good awareness of psoriatic arthritis, too, despite the fact that their knowledge of psoriatic arthritis is low. Discussion and conclusion: Psoriatic patients are well informed about psoriatic arthritis, but basic awareness of symptoms could be better. Only with better knowledge patients could easily recognize the disease. We think that awareness can be improved with health education materials and free lectures