How Can Endometriosis Care Be Improved?

Researchers analyzed the answers of 1000 women with the disease.

Key Points

Highlights: 

• Women with endometriosis came up with ideas to improve their care.

Importance:

• The findings of the study can help design better global care for endometriosis.

What's done here:

• Researchers analyzed the answers of 1000 women with endometriosis to the question "If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your health care?”

Key results:

The top five areas of improvement that the women came up with were:

1. Train caregivers about endometriosis 
2. Provide better management of daily pain and pain attacks 
3. Take symptoms seriously 
4. Standardize diagnostic processes  
5. Have caregivers listen more to the patients

Limitations:

• The results are based on the answers of women from a single country and may not be representative globally.

Lay Summary

Researchers identified 61 areas for improvement in endometriosis care based on the answers of endometriosis patients. Of these the top five areas of improvement were to train caregivers in order to develop their knowledge about endometriosis, to provide better management methods to deal with daily pain and pain attacks, to take symptoms reported by patients seriously, to standardize diagnostic processes for the early detection of the disease, and to have caregivers listen more to the patients. 

According to the authors of the study, which was published in the Journal of Women’s Health, these findings “ be useful to design a better global care for endometriosis”.

In order to find ideas from the patients’ point of view, which can help improve the care of women with endometriosis, a team of researchers led by Dr. Viet-Thi Tran analyzed the answers of 1000 women with the disease who were asked the following question: "If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your health care?”

The women generated 2,487 ideas that could improve the management of the disease. The researchers grouped these into 61 areas and 14 themes. More than 100 women mentioned the top five areas of improvement.

“These results reflect patients' expectations in terms of management of their disease,” the researchers said.

Endometriosis is a debilitating condition affecting around 10% of women of reproductive age. Many women still have to wait years before receiving the correct diagnosis.

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36656556/