The Experience and Impact of Living With Gout

Abstract

Chronic gout has an important impact on both the patient and his family. This work provides previously hidden perspectives of the experience of gout, which may be generalized to other men with gout, suggesting that shame, embarrassment, and stigma lead to trivialization of the impact of disease despite its severity. These experiences may lead to undertreatment of gout because of lack of disclosure of symptom severity and lack of expectation of treatment effectiveness, which in turn could contribute to the development of progressive gout.

The impact of gout on patient’s lives: a study of African-American and Caucasian men and women with gout

“…Patients also needed crutches and walking aids during acute gout flares and felt that they were aging prematurely. Our study confirmed the impact of gout on patients’ lives recognized in the earlier study [26], namely, severe pain, dependency, work disability, dietary restrictions and social isolation. These findings substantiate the disease burden and the broad impact on patients’ lives.…”

“…The concept covered was broad and diverse and women were not included. Our study builds on this foundation [26] and adds significant knowledge to this area. Other qualitative and quantitative studies have covered an even wider range of gout-related issues including treatment, knowledge, disease monitoring, outcomes and patient and clinician perspective within each study [24,25,42].…”

“…An elegant previous study in 11 men with gout identified three themes - the lack of knowledge related to gout, the progressiveness of untreated gout and the impact of disease (pain, dependency on family members, isolation, work disability) [26]. The concept covered was broad and diverse and women were not included.…”

“…Therefore, it is critical to understand the specific impact of gout on patients’ lives. To date, qualitative research in gout has focused on examining patients’ knowledge related to gout, patterns of treatment and the barriers to treatment adherence [24-26]. There are at least three knowledge gaps related to the effect of gout on QOL: (1) qualitative studies have been done primarily in Caucasian men with gout; none included African Americans [24-26]; (2) only 11 of the 46 gout patients in all previous studies combined were women [24,25], indicating the need for more research into women with gout; and (3) most studies have assessed multiple aspects of gout, including treatment, knowledge, disease monitoring, outcomes and patient and clinician perspective, often in a setting of a single study [24-26].…”

The role of diet in serum urate concentration

“…As a result, patients known to have gout are often reluctant to seek help for fear that they will not be taken seriously or will be blamed for their lifestyle habits,1416 meaning that practitioners are often unaware that patients have troublesome symptoms. When patients develop gout, they are frequently given inaccurate or conflicting information which trivialises gout and misrepresents its causes and treatment 1214.…”