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A specific nursing educational program in patients with Cushing’s syndrome

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Abstract

Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare endocrine disease, due to cortisol hypersecretion. CS patients have comorbidities, often still present after biochemical cure. Specific nursing healthcare programs to address this disease and achieve improved health related quality of life (HRQoL) are lacking. Thus, an educational nursing intervention, through the development and promotion of specific educational tools, appears to be justified. The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of an educational nursing program in CS patients on HRQoL, clinical parameters, level of pain and physical activity, patterns of rest, and use of health resources. A prospective, randomized study was conducted in two reference hospitals for CS. Sixty-one patients (mean age 47 ± 12.7 years, 83.6 % females) were enrolled and divided into 2 groups: an “intervention” group where educational sessions were performed over 9 months and a “control” group, without these sessions. Specific questionnaires were used at the beginning and end of the study. After educational sessions, the intervention group had a better score in the CushingQoL questionnaire (p < 0.01), reduced level of pain (p < 0.05), improved physical activity (p < 0.01) and healthy lifestyle (p < 0.001) compared to the control group. A correlation between the CushingQoL score and reduced pain (r = 0.46, p < 0.05), improved physical activity (r = 0.89, p < 0.01), and sleep (r = 0.53, p = 0.01) was observed. This educational nursing program improved physical activity, healthy lifestyle, better sleep patterns, and reduced pain in CS patients, influencing HRQoL and reducing consumption of health resources. Moreover, the brief nature of the program suggests it as a good candidate to be used in CS patients.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN, FIS080302). The collaboration of the patients and controls who participated in this study is also acknowledged. We thank Dr. Ignasi Gich, from the Department of Epidemiology of the Hospital Sant Pau for the critical review of the statistical analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University School of Nursing, Hospital Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain

    M. Antonia Martínez-Momblán, Julia Esteve, Beatriz Campillo & Montserrat Guillaumet

  2. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Spain

    M. Antonia Martínez-Momblán, Alicia Santos, Julia Esteve, Beatriz Campillo, Montserrat Guillaumet, Susan M. Webb & Eugenia Resmini

  3. Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras (CIBER-ER), Unit 747, ISCIII, Madrid, Spain

    M. Antonia Martínez-Momblán, Alicia Santos, Susan M. Webb & Eugenia Resmini

  4. Intensive Care Department, Hospital Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain

    Carmen Gómez

  5. Endocrinology/Medicine Department, Hospital de Sant Pau, IIB Sant Pau, C. S. Antoni Maria Claret n.167, 08025, Barcelona, Spain

    Alicia Santos, Susan M. Webb & Eugenia Resmini

  6. Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain

    Nuria Porta

  7. Department of Nursing, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain

    Inmaculada Úbeda

  8. Department Endocrinology, Hospital Clinic, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Irene Halperin

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  1. M. Antonia Martínez-Momblán
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Correspondence to Eugenia Resmini.

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M. Antonia Martínez-Momblán received an unrestricted grant from Novartis as an investigator initiated study. The other authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research reported.

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Martínez-Momblán, M.A., Gómez, C., Santos, A. et al. A specific nursing educational program in patients with Cushing’s syndrome. Endocrine 53, 199–209 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-015-0737-0

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