Perceived mistreatment in patients with rheumatic diseases: The impact of the underlying diagnosis
Irazú Contreras-Yáñez, Loraine Ledón-LLanes, Guillermo Arturo Guaracha-Basañez, América Sánchez-Hernández, Ana Belén Ortiz-Haro, Virginia Pascual-Ramos
Abstract
Mistreatment is a complex problem that impacts people’s quality of life, morbidity, and mortality. In aged people, it has been associated with female sex, poor general health, depression, functional and cognitive decline, and increased dependence levels, all of which are well-recognized characteristics of patients with rheumatic diseases (RMDs).
Introduction
Rheumatic diseases (RMDs) integrate a complex group of chronic musculoskeletal conditions primarily characterized by musculoskeletal pain, impaired function and quality of life (QoL), comorbidity coexistence, and overall increased mortality [1–3].
Materials and methods
The study was performed in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration [31]. The Research Ethics Committee of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador-Zubirán (INCMyN-SZ) approved the study (Reference number: IRE-4538-23-24-1), which was registered on clinicaltrial.gov (NCT06233760).
Results
The population for which we estimated the prevalence of mistreatment included 372 patients with RMDs. The distribution of their diagnoses and patients’ characteristics is summarized in Fig 1 and Table 1.
Discussion
The current study assessed mistreatment in patients with RMDs, using a previously adapted and validated questionnaire in the target population. Mistreatment is a complex phenomenon, and its measurement should ideally involve operationalizing a defined variable and developing and applying an instrument to its adequate quantification and to avoid misclassification bias.
Conclusions
Half of the Mexican patients with RMDs reported experiencing mistreatment. Interestingly, patients didn’t always attribute the mistreatment to their underlying condition. The most common form of mistreatment reported was psychological, followed by neglect, sexual, physical, and economic mistreatment.
Citation: Contreras-Yáñez I, Ledón-LLanes L, Guaracha-Basañez GA, Sánchez-Hernández A, Ortiz-Haro AB, Pascual-Ramos V (2024) Perceived mistreatment in patients with rheumatic diseases: The impact of the underlying diagnosis. PLoS ONE 19(12): e0316312. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316312
Editor: Julien Wist, Murdoch University, AUSTRALIA
Received: April 10, 2024; Accepted: December 10, 2024; Published: December 30, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Contreras-Yáñez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: Complete data supporting this study's findings are not openly available, as they compromise patient identification and are considered sensitive information. The study analyzed data from outpatients from a single center in Mexico City (information regarding the single center can be deduced from co-authors' data). Patients' information include data related to perceived mistreatment and its perpetrators; even more, as part of the study results, we described that patients were reluctant to identified perpetrators. Because of the above reasons, we consider it unethical to put the data in a public repository (Plos One only recommends public repositories) and or supporting information file. Our complete data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with our local IRB's approval. Data requests can also be placed with the chair of the Research Ethics Committee, Dr. Sergio C. Hernández Jiménez, via e-mail at: sergio.hernandezj@incmnsz.mx.
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0316312#sec025
