AB1363-HPR EVALUATION OF SELECTION CRITERIA OF CLINICIANS IN THE TREATMENT OF OSTEOPOROSIS, OSTREQ RESEARCH IN TURKEY
Authors: E. G. Kahraman, S. Akar, B. Ö. Pamuk
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2020)

Background: Osteoporosis is a disease with increasing prevalence in the aging and growing world population and its insidious progression and lack of findings without fracture cause certain difficulties in the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. There are many medical and paramedical treatment options for osteoporosis, and clinicians make these treatment decisions with many factors in mind. Objectives: We wanted to evaluate the importance of these factors for clinicians through a questionnaire. This 17-question questionnaire aimed to investigate the factors that clinicians consider in the planning of osteoporosis treatment and the effect of these factors on treatment planning. We made the Turkish version of the OSTEQ questionnaire in this study which factors clinicians in planning treatment for osteoporosis in Turkey we aimed to investigate that take into consideration. Methods: OSTREQ questionnaire developed by Makraz et al. are used in this research. In this survey, which consists of 8 sections (health care system, patients’ preferences regarding regimen’s administration, usage, cost, severity of disease, treatment efficacy, safety profile and pharmaceutical industry) and 17 questions, the participants were asked to evaluate their answers with 5 different scales: Absolutely Preventive, Partially Preventive, Neither Preventive or Encouraging, Partially Encouraging, Absolutely Encouraging. Clinicians of Rheumatology, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases participated in our study. The questionnaires were filled in by e-mail or by inviting the participants to the our university or by going to the clinics where the clinicians were working. Results: In our study 37 (21.8%) were endocrinology, 49 (28.8%) were rheumatology and 84 (49.4%) were physical therapy and rehabilitation specialists. The overall Cronbach alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was found to be 0.855. No material was found to significantly increase the internal reliability coefficient if deleted. As a result of t-test in 27% lower and upper groups to measure the discriminative power of the items, it was seen that all items made a significant difference in the lower and upper groups, which were formed according to the total score of 27 people. Confirmatory factor analysis and internal reliability results did not require removal of the substance, so the substance was not removed. When the responses of the specialist physicians participating in our study to the osteoporosis preference criteria questionnaire were examined according to their specialty, no statistically significant difference was found between specialty branches but only significant difference was found in health system and cost subscale according to branches (p = 0.013). Post-hoc test (LSD) was used to find out the group that made a significant difference in health system and cost sub-factor. higher scores (p = 0.034). Conclusion: We developed and validated a general osteoporosis treatment questionnaire that could provide assessment of the criteria that physicians take into consideration when they decide to implement a regimen for osteoporosis. This tool could assist health care systems and pharmaceutical companies understand which parameters drive physicians’ choices regarding the treatment of osteoporosis. References: [1]P. Makras, A. Galanos, S. Rizou, A. D. Anastasilakis, and G. P. Lyritis, “Development and validation of an osteoporosis treatment questionnaire (OSTREQ) evaluating physicians’ criteria in the choice of treatment,” Hormones , vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 413–422, Jul. 2016. [2]S. Tuzun et al. , “Incidence of hip fracture and prevalence of osteoporosis in Turkey: The FRACTURK study,” Osteoporos. Int. , vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 949–955, Mar. 2012. Disclosure of Interests: None declared