Original Article

Development of Thalassemia Medication Questionnaire (TMQ): An Instrument for Measuring Major Thalassemia Patients’ Knowledge and Practice Regarding their Medications

Abstract

Background: Thalassemia is a congenital disease and Iran is as one of the countries in the thalassemia belt. It has a huge burden in Iranian national health budget. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire to assess the knowledge and practice of thalassemia patients toward their medications.

 Methods: This is a methodological research, which was done from April 2020 to November 2021 in Tehran, Iran, to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring major thalassemia patients’ knowledge and practice regarding their medications, a questionnaire based on three iron chelating medications (deferoxamine, deferiprone, and deferasirox) developed. This process done by holding several expert panel meetings. This questionnaire was consisting of some aspects such as: administration, self-monitoring, miss dose, common interactions, and adverse events. Content validity index (CVI) and internal consistency and reliability were calculated. 

Results: The CVI was as 0.76 for deferoxamine, 0.80 deferiprone and 0.88 for deferasirox questionnaire. Further analysis for internal consistency demonstrated satisfactory results with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.743 to 0.781. Results showed Thalassemia Medication Questionnaire (TMQ) demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability for application.

 Conclusion: It was concluded that TMQ could be a useful instrument to measure knowledge and practice about iron chelation therapy. The reason is the diverse range of questions and the simplicity, validity, reliability, and the practicability.

1. Karimi M, Rasekhi AR. Efficiency of premarital screening of beta-thalassemia trait using MCH rather than MCV in the population of Fars Province, Iran. Haematologia. 2002;32(2):129-33.
2. Cunningham MJ, Macklin EA, Neufeld EJ, Cohen AR. Complications of beta-thalassemia major in North America. Blood. 2004;104(1):34-9.
3. Musallam KM, Cappellini MD, Taher AT. Iron overload in beta-thalassemia intermedia: an emerging concern. Curr Opin Hematol. 2013;20(3):187-92.
4. Gabutti V, Piga A. Results of long-term iron-chelating therapy. Acta Haematologica. 1996;95(1):26-36.
5. Galanello R. Deferiprone in the treatment of transfusion-dependent thalassemia: a review and perspective. Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2007;3(5):795.
6. Eleftheriou A. Thalassemia International Federation: Guidelines for the clinical management of thalassemia. 2nd Revised edition. Nicosia (CY): Thalassaemia International Federation; 2008.
7. Cappellini MD. Long-term efficacy and safety of deferasirox. Blood Rev. 2008;22:S35-S41.
8. Pakbaz Z, Fischer R, treadwell M, et al. A simple model to assess and improve adherence to iron chelation therapy with deferoxamine in patients with thalassemia. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005;1054(1):486-91.
9. Vichinsky E. Iron overload and iron chelation therapy in pediatric patients. US Hematology. 2009;2(1):64-7.
10. Abu Samra O, Auda W, Kamhawy H, Al-Tonbary Y. Impact of educational programme regarding chelation therapy on the quality of life for B-thalassemia major children. Hematology. 2015;20(5):297-303.
11. Motta I, Bou-Fakhredin R, Taher AT, Cappellini MD. Beta Thalassemia: New Therapeutic Options Beyond Transfusion and Iron Chelation. Drugs. 2020;80(11):1053-1063.
Upadhyay SC. Assessment of the knowledge of thalassemia in the thalassemia patients and the treatment received by them. The Internet Journal of Hematology. 2008;5(2):1-8.
13. Kourorian Z, Azarkeivan A, Hajibeigi B, Oshidari A, Shirkavnd A. The effect of knowledge, attitude and practice on the function of Thalassemic patients. Iranian Journal of Blood and Cancer. 2014;6(4):177-81.
14. Porteous T, Francis J, Bond C, Hannaford P. Temporal stability of beliefs about medicines: implications for optimising adherence. Patient Educ Couns. 2010;79(2):225-30.
15. Waltz CF, Bausell BR. Nursing research: design statistics and computer analysis: Davis FA; 1981.
16. Hyrkäs K, Appelqvist-Schmidlechner K, Oksa L. Validating an instrument for clinical supervision using an expert panel. Int J Nurs Stud. 2003;40(6):619-25.
17. Lawshe C. A quantitative approach to content validity. Pers Psychol. 1975;28(4):563–575.
18. Karimzaei T, Masoudi Q, Shahrakipour M, Navidiyan A, Jamalzae AA, Zoraqi Bamri A. Knowledge, attitude and practice of carrier thalassemia marriage volunteer in prevention of major thalassemia. Glob J Health Sci. 2015;7(5):364-70.
19. Poengoet BNSR, Sungkar E, Pandji TD. Quality of Life in Thalassemia Major Patients: Reliability and Validity of Indonesian Version of TranQol Questionnaire. International Journal of Integrated Health Sciences. 2017;5(2):75-9.
Files
IssueVol 10, No 4 (Autumn 2022) QRcode
SectionOriginal Article(s)
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/jpc.v10i4.11583
Keywords
Iron Chelating Agents Deferasirox Deferoxamine Deferiprone Thalassemia Questionnaire
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Azarkeivan A, Mohammadnezhad G, Esmaily H. Development of Thalassemia Medication Questionnaire (TMQ): An Instrument for Measuring Major Thalassemia Patients’ Knowledge and Practice Regarding their Medications. J Pharm Care. 2022;10(4):223-228.