Patient’s perceptions, beliefs and needs in the management of knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review protocol of qualitative studies

Catarina Matias, Luiz Miguel Santiago, Sandra Lima, Filipe Prazeres, Inês Rosendo

Keywords: Knee osteoarthritis, Patient, Perception, Belief, Unmet needs; Cronic Pain

Background:

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a prevalent, costly chronic condition with physical symptoms and functional limitation. Once cure is not possible, there is a search for more appropriate treatments for clinical and functional improvement, but still a minority shows modest efficiency.
A comprehensive approach with patient's enablement and empowerment must be considered.
The aim of this study is to review and describe patient’s perceptions, beliefs and needs in the management of KOA by qualitative studies already published.

Research questions:

What are patient’s perceptions, beliefs and unmet needs in the management of knee osteoarthritis?

Method:

Systematic review of qualitative studies;PROSPERO registration: CRD42023445212. Planned to follow ENTREQ rules and PRISMA statements for reporting systematic reviews, according to PICOS criteria (interventions and comparators are not applicable in this case and the phenomenon of interest will be identified).
P: Adults, over 40 years with KOA, excluding te following underlying causes - fracture, infectious disease, cancer and systemic inflammatory disease.
O: Patient’s perceptions, beliefs and needs in the management of KOA.
Search strategy already planned - will be presented in case of abstract selected. Databases: Pubmed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus and CINAHL.
Full text qualitative studies and systematic reviews of qualitative studies in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, published until 30.10.2023.
Data will be analysed using a three-stage approach adapted from Sandelowski and Barroso.
Quality assessment: CASP qualitative checklist and CASP systematic review checklist.

Results:

This is a systematic review protocol, already with no results.

Conclusions:

Manifestation of symptoms by patients is subjective. Dissatisfaction of patients and healthcare professionals may come from unmet needs. More than pertinent, it's essential to collect information regarding the patients' point of view in a person-centered approach.
A systematic review gives us a summary and will be essential to clearly identify what are the research gaps and to design strategic directives that can be more cost-effective.

Points for discussion:

Knee Osteoarthritis Management

Patient's perceptions, beliefs and unmet needs

Research methodology - Systematic review of qualitative studies

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