Authors (including presenting author) :
Konishi R, Ma WL, Lau CF, Chan HH, Lam CF, Ma HH, Tsui WC, Wong KW,
Chan Y, Cheung I
Affiliation :
Department of Occupational Therapy, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Introduction :
Varicose veins affect 8.9% of the Chinese population such that more than 100 million of people are suffered. They may present with symptoms including pain and muscle cramps. Possible complications such as edema and ulcer could further reduce quality of life. Compression therapy used to be the corner-stone of management in varicose veins. Given that pressure garment is a passive treatment modality and varicose veins constitute a progressive disease, there is an emerging need to take a more proactive self-management approach for long term effect. Therefore, in addition to the traditional usage of pressure garment, we developed a varicose veins self-management program.
Objectives :
By focusing on individualized occupational advice, patient empowerment and home exercise, our objective is to facilitate patients’ varicose veins self-management and disease progress prevention.
Methodology :
The study was conducted in the Occupational Therapy Unit of Ambulatory Care Centre for patients who were referred for varicose veins management from December 2020 to July 2021. Subjects were recruited by convenient sampling and were aged 18 or above. Upon the program entry, a video was shown to patients for varicose veins knowledge and home exercise education. Apart from the provision of tailor made pressure garment, regular individualized consultation by registered occupational therapists were also arranged for occupational advice and monitoring of patient’s self-management progress.
Pre- and post-educational video assessments were conducted using a quiz to investigate patients’ understanding on the video content. Besides, each patient was given a self-report survey at initial, 1- and 3-month post treatment for assessing their varicose veins self-management confidence, exercise progress and pressure garment usage. Paired t-test was applied for statistical analysis and p value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Result & Outcome :
38 patients were recruited to the program and 84% of them were female. Their mean age and varicose veins average onset time were 57.4 and 7.1 years, respectively. 100% of the patients were satisfied with the varicose veins self-management program. 53% of them performed home exercise for 4 to 7 times per week and 83% wore pressure garment for 4 to 7 days per week. Moreover, patients’ knowledge on varicose veins (p<0.001) and their self-management confidence (p<0.001) showed significant improvement after the treatment.
The present varicose veins self-management program was able to equip patients with an active role in their disease management by advising on their occupational and exercise habits, improving their related knowledge and self-management confidence.
