One of the key aspects of minimally disruptive medicine is the need to become aware of the burden that our treatments cause on people’s lives. This concept, of burden of treatment, relates to the distress (including suffering, interruption, inconvenience) caused by treatment-associated demands for time, attention, and work. We know very little about it, but our international team is working toward clarity in this area.
Some important studies have been recently published and I bring them here for your attention:
1: Eton DT, Ramalho de Oliveira D, Egginton JS, Ridgeway JL, Odell L, May CR, Montori VM. Building a measurement framework of burden of treatment in complex patients with chronic conditions: a qualitative study. Patient Relat Outcome Meas. 2012;3:39-49. doi: 10.2147/PROM.S34681. Epub 2012 Aug 24. PubMed PMID: 23185121; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3506008.
2: Tran VT, Montori VM, Eton DT, Baruch D, Falissard B, Ravaud P. Development and description of measurement properties of an instrument to assess treatment burden among patients with multiple chronic conditions. BMC Med. 2012 Jul 4;10:68. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-10-68. PubMed PMID: 22762722; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3402984.
3: Jani B, Blane D, Browne S, Montori V, May C, Shippee N, Mair FS. Identifying treatment burden as an important concept for end of life care in those with advanced heart failure. Curr Opin Support Palliat Care. 2012 Nov 28. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23196381.
4: Shippee ND, Shah ND, May CR, Mair FS, Montori VM. Cumulative complexity: a functional, patient-centered model of patient complexity can improve research and practice. J Clin Epidemiol. 2012 Oct;65(10):1041-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.05.005. Review. PubMed PMID: 22910536.
5: Gallacher K, May CR, Montori VM, Mair FS. Understanding patients’ experiences of treatment burden in chronic heart failure using normalization process theory. Ann Fam Med. 2011 May-Jun;9(3):235-43. doi: 10.1370/afm.1249. PubMed PMID: 21555751; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3090432.
6: Bohlen K, Scoville E, Shippee ND, May CR, Montori VM. Overwhelmed patients: a videographic analysis of how patients with type 2 diabetes and clinicians articulate and address treatment burden during clinical encounters. Diabetes Care. 2012 Jan;35(1):47-9. doi: 10.2337/dc11-1082. Epub 2011 Nov 18. PubMed PMID: 22100962; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3241328.
