How to improve patient education on deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease: the CARE Monitor study

BMC Neurology

Table 1 Correlation between patients’ consent to be referred to a DBS center, clinical characteristics and the contents of clarification sessions

		Group Consent		Group Refusal
		N = 114 (43.2%)		N = 150 (56.8%)
	N	Median	25./75. Quartiles	Median	25./75.Quartiles	p*
Numerical Data
Age	262	63	53–70	67	60–71	0.002
Disease duration	245	9	5–12	8	6–12	0.618
Hoehn & Yahr Stage	250	3	2–3	3	2–3	0.995
Eligibility for DBS (STIMULUS Score)	260	8	7–9	8	7–9	0.682
Subjective Impairment	255	7	6–8	7	6–8	0.178
Number of topics addressed in the clarification talk	264	6	4–9	5	3–9	0.001
Categorial Data	N		%	N	%	p*
Gender	Male	73	64.0	99	66.0	0.795
Gender	Female	41	36.0	51	34.0	0.795
Occupation	Working	21	18.4	17	11.3	0.362
	Retired	79	69.3	118	78.7
	Unemployed	13	11.4	14	9.3
Subtype	Akinetic-rigid	45	39.5	33	22.0	0.008
	Tremor dominant	21	18.4	38	25.3
	Equivalent	48	42.1	79	52.7
Evaluation of the information material	Helpful	79	89.8	77	69.4	<0.001
	Uncertain	8	9.1	20	18.0
	Not helpful	1	1.1	14	12.6
Information source^‡	Media	4	3.5	9	6.0	0.265
	Doctor	93	81.6	117	78.0	0.539
	Support group	3	2.6	8	5.3	0.360
	Others	1	0.9	1	0.7	>0.999
	Patient with DBS	3	2.6	0	0.0	0.079
Contents of clarification talk^‡	motor improvement	104	91.2	117	78.0	0.004
	quality of life	106	93.0	114	76.0	<0.001
	side effects of medication	86	75.4	76	50.7	<0.001
	optimal time frame	66	57.9	50	33.3	<0.001
	expectations	60	52.6	62	41.3	0.081
	change of role model in partnership	20	17.5	25	16.7	0.870
	patients fears	20	17.5	20	13.3	0.388
	evidence of DBS	44	38.6	34	22.7	0.006
	experience with DBS	43	37.7	54	30.0	0.191
	complications of DBS surgery	63	55.3	74	49.3	0.385
	side effects of DBS	58	50.9	63	42.0	0.171
	effects of medication withdrawal	32	28.1	39	26.0	0.780
	progression of PD	52	45.6	58	38.7	0.260
	others	16	14.0	9	6.0	0.034

* To analyze the impact of numerical data on patients’ decisions, Mann-Whitney U tests were calculated and the median and 25.-75. quartiles are presented. For categorial variables with more than two categories (subtype and occupation) Chi-Square tests were conducted. For categorial variables with two categories, Fisher's exact tests were conducted. Exact two-tailed p values are presented. A variable with a p value < 0.05 was considered as a potential predictive variable and therefore included in the binary regression analysis.
‡ In the categories information source and contents of clarification talk more than one option could be reported. Therefore, Fisher's exact tests were calculated for the prevalence or absence of each topic/source and the resulting p values are presented. To clarify the presentation only the number of prevalent cases are shown.
The entries in italicized represent significant p values (lower than 0.05)

ISSN: 1471-2377