Endometriosis Care Is More Patient-Centered for age older than 35

Endometriosis care should be improved especially for younger women.

Key Points

Highlights: 

• Younger women experience endometriosis care in a less patient-centered manner.

Importance:

• Endometriosis care should be improved especially for younger women

What's done here:

• The answers of almost 500 women with endometriosis to the "ENDOCARE Questionnaire" were analyzed.

Key results:

• Younger women experienced care in a less patient-centered way regarding physical comfort, continuity, access to care, technical skills, and overall patient-centeredness score.
• They experience care in a more patient-centered way regarding emotional support.

Limitations:

• The women who chose to answer the questions may have personal reasons to do so.
• Women were asked about the care they received in the past so there may be a recall bias in their answers.
• The study was conducted in Sweden and the findings might not apply to other countries.

Lay Summary

Women younger than age 35 receive endometriosis care in a less patient-centered manner compared to older women, found a new study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This finding underscores the importance of improving endometriosis care, especially for younger women. 

“The results contribute to the understanding of the experience of patient-centeredness, which may be used as a guide to how healthcare recourses should be allocated,” the researchers wrote. “Further research is needed to identify other factors contributing to the experience of patient-centeredness”.

Patient-centeredness is of great importance when it comes to the quality of care. There may be many factors influencing patient-centeredness in endometriosis care, age being one of them.

Here, a team of researchers from Sweden led by Dr. Hanna Grundström investigated whether women younger or older than age 35 experience endometriosis care differently in terms of patient-centeredness.

The researchers sent the ENDOCARE Questionnaire to 1000 women with endometriosis to find out and received answers from 469 women. 

When they analyzed the answers, the researchers found that women younger than age 35 experienced care as less patient-centered in terms of physical comfort, continuity, access to care, technical skills, and overall patient-centeredness score compared to women older than 35. However, in terms of emotional support, they experienced care in a more patient-centered manner.

The researchers found a positive correlation between age and access to care and technical skills and a negative correlation with emotional support.

They said that future research is needed to “evaluate how different interventions can improve patient-centeredness”.

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36194085/