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Serum Urate Treatment Goals in Gout

Do patients know where they’re headed?

Publish date:: February 1, 2016

Knowledge about serum urate (SU) treatment goals is lacking among gout patients receiving urate lowering therapy (ULT) despite generally high levels of other gout-specific knowledge. This according to a survey of 612 patients with gout at a Veterans Affairs medical center. Researchers found:

The questionnaire had a 62% response rate.

Only 14% of patients knew their SU goal.

The vast majority of patients answered correctly on 5 other gout-specific knowledge questions.

In adjusted analysis, having a rheumatologist as initial prescriber (OR=3.0) and knowing all of the other 5 questions (OR=2.1) were associated with greater odds of knowing SU goal.

SU goal knowledge was associated with self-reported global health status, but not with self-reported health-related quality of life or gout-specific health status.

Citation: Coburn BW, Bendlin KA, Sayles H, Hentzen KS, Hrdy MM, Mikuls TR. Target serum urate: Do gout patients know their goal? [Published online ahead of print January 19, 2016]. Arth Care Res. doi: 10.1002/acr.22785.

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