Assessment of patient needs to design a patient education program in systemic lupus erythematosus

The aim of this study was to collect information to design a patient education program (PEP) for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), based as much as possible on their expectations. Three different approaches were used for addressing patients' needs: 1) A questionnaire on their expectations in terms of a PEP was sent to the members of SLE associations and offered to patients at the French reference center for SLE, 2) A patients' focus group was conducted, and 3) After the teaching sessions, satisfaction questionnaires were also evaluated. The patients who answered the expectation questionnaire (n=422, women/men sex-ratio: 12.6) indicated a major interest in the PEP (70.4%). Their expectations were broad, and covered the topics of pregnancy (90% of the women under the age of 40), the outcome of the disease (80.8%), the respective roles of the different treatments (70.4%), and also the management of everyday symptoms: fatigue and pain (66.4%). The focus group (eight people) highlighted the need for improving how the diagnosis of the disease was delivered, and also revealed the loneliness and the guilty feeling experienced by some patients toward their relatives. Satisfaction questionnaires confirmed these expectations for the PEP, and even extended them to new topics: the mechanisms behind SLE, travel and leisure, and possible accommodations in the workplace. The direct consultation of patients with SLE targeted by a specific PEP program allowed us to confirm and adapt the topics and the content of a program designed by medical staff.