Dorset Treatment Burden Survey (v1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Population-level assessment of treatment burden in chronic disease: Dorset survey
IRAS ID
242816
Contact name
James Morris
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 19 days
Research summary
This study is a survey of adult patients on the topic of ‘treatment burden’. Treatment burden means the effort that people have to put in to manage their health when they have long-term conditions, and the challenges that this can pose. Activities contributing to treatment burden include taking medications, attending healthcare appointments, and performing self-care. These things can take significant effort, have a financial cost, and take up time.
It is not uncommon for people to live with several long-term conditions, especially as the UK population is getting older. Patients are often asked to follow treatment plans for several health conditions at once, which may lead to high treatment burden and impact people’s quality of life.
The aim of this study is to find out how much treatment burden is experienced by people living with long-term conditions. By better understanding the characteristics of those people who experience high treatment burden, it may also be possible to reduce this burden more effectively. This might mean agreeing tailored treatment plans with a doctor, as well as improving the design of healthcare services.
Patients who have at least three long-term health conditions and who are aged over 55 will be eligible for the study. Survey packs will be posted out via GP practices located in Dorset. Recipients wishing to take part will compete a questionnaire. This contains questions about the effort of managing long-term conditions, plus other questions about general health and participants’ characteristics. Participants can also consent for relevant data from their GP record to be shared with the research team, and to receive a possible follow-up survey within the next three years.
Lay summary of study results: Background Treatment burden is the effort required of patients to look after their health, and the impact this has on their wellbeing.
The aim of this study was determine the extent of high treatment burden among older adults with multiple long-term conditions, and to explore how well a novel single-item treatment burden measure worked.
We did a cross-sectional postal survey via general practices in Dorset. We involved patients aged 55 years or older, living at home, with three or more long-term conditions. Treatment burden was measured using the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire.
835 people responsed to the survey (response rate 42%) across eight practices. The average age was 75 years and just over half were women. Almost one-fifth (18%) of responders reported high treatment burden (n = 150). Things that were particularly challenging for people were making lifestyle changes and arranging appointments and having limited health literacy and financial difficulty were also associated with high treatment burden as were having more conditions and more prescribed medications. The single-item measure performed only moderately well in identifying high treatment burden.High treatment burden was therefore relatively common, and vulnerable patients, with less capacity to manage, were at greater risk of being overburdened. Further development of a short treatment burden measure is needed.
REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/2004
Date of REC Opinion
22 Nov 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion