A recent study from Mayo Clinic reveals new insights for healthcare providers in understanding patients’ acceptable threshold in withstanding treatment burden.

The study examined 2,413 patients with chronic conditions and used a Treatment Burden Questionnaire, which posed yes/no questions such as, “Think about all the things you do to care for yourself. Do you think you could continue investing the same amount of time, energy, and money in your health care lifelong?” The responses to these questions were collected and used to define the researchers’ Patient Acceptable Symptom State (PASS) and to examine and understand burdens patients experience with their current treatment plan.

The results of the PASS revealed that 40% of the patients were “unable to sustain current investments of energy, time, and money in health care lifelong.”

What this study may mean for nurses and other healthcare providers is that new methods may exist for monitoring and interpreting patients’ treatment burden.

Please read more about the study here.

Source:

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(19)30770-0/fulltext