Patient satisfaction in hemophilia: a fundamental component of medical care and an indicator of the quality of medical care provided.

Introduction

It is paramount that physicians treating people with hemophilia (PWH) assess their degree of satisfaction.Areas covered: The most important predictors of the difficulties of treatment satisfaction are the perceived barriers, the level of skills related to self-treatment, the degree of severity of hemophilia and the affective status. The use of an electronic diary improves the adherence of PWH with respect to the registration of the mandatory information of their treatment. Asymptomatic HIV-positive PWH are more dissatisfied than HIV-negative PWH due to the effects of HIV and to the physical functional disabilities caused by the disease. Regarding total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in hemophilia, it has been shown that PWH with advanced painful knee arthropathy do not achieve the same degree of satisfaction as PWH with advanced painful osteoarthritis of the knee, this being due to residual symptoms and deterioration of other joints. TKA and total hip arthroplasty (THA) are reliable surgical procedures that give PWH a high degree of satisfaction. Regarding the use of a Bio-Set reconstitution method, most PWH (82%) preferred the Bio-Set method to previous reconstitution methods.Expert opinion: Further studies on the degree of satisfaction of PWH are essential.