Approach of Family Physicians to Nonpharmacological Treatment Methods Used in Lower Extremity Osteoarthritis: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease in the world, most common in the lower extremities, and the leading cause of chronic musculoskeletal pain. In all guidelines published on the treatment of OA, the most suitable method of treatment is the combination of pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the awareness and approaches of nonpharmacological methods of OA treatment of physicians who working in Family Medicine Clinics in Ankara. METHODS: This research is descriptive and cross-sectional. As of 2019, all family physicians working in Family Medicine Clinics in Ankara constitute the study population. Family physicians who volunteered to participate in the study were accepted to this study by using face to face survey methods. Both self-efficacy scores and total approach scores for non-pharmacological treatment were calculated. The significance level was taken p<0.05. RESULTS: 234 family physicians participated to the study. 54.71% of physicians stated that they had not received a training on OA treatment approaches before. Physicians who received training and thought that this training was sufficient, both the non-pharmacological approach score and the competence scores they gave themselves were found to be significantly higher. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: A lack of education on OA treatment approaches was detected and it was seen in this study that family physicians who had received training on this subject and found this training sufficient benefited from these trainings. This study showed that nonpharmacological treatment methods should be used more frequently by family physicians because of easy to apply, low cost and reduce disease progression and disability.

Keywords

• family medicine
• osteoarthritis
• hip and knee osteoarthritis
• nonpharmacological treatment.