Development of publications on patient education in chronic diseases from 1999 to 2009

Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, patient education mainly deals with chronic diseases and conditions which require self care. We know that this practice is still emerging and it is therefore interesting to observe the amount of international research produced in this field during the last years. Objective: We have analysed the quantitative evolution of scientific papers devoted to patient education (PE) over a 10 years period (1999–2009). Methods: Fourty-one chronic diseases and conditions in 11 disciplines have been selected as being the most concerned with patient education (PE). The identification on “Pubmed” of the studies dealing with these diseases, published from 1999 to 2009, has been undertaken considering the total number of articles mentioning PE activities, the distribution and the evolution in time of PE studies in those disciplines and chronic diseases, the types of publications (reviews, randomized control trials, meta-analyses) on PE. Results: We have found 13 576 studies on PE from 1999 to 2009 representing 1.01% of the total number of the articles (1 335 885) published on the selected 41 chronic diseases and conditions. The five disciplines more invested in PE activities (with the highest ratio: total number of articles mentioning PE/total number of articles) are respectively: endocrinology, pneumology, nephrology, infectiology (AIDS), psychiatry. The studies mentioning patient education in bronchial asthma represent 2.77% of the total number of the studies dealing with this disease; diabetes (2.62%), fibromyalgia (2.54%), anxiety (2.09%), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (2.07%) follow. In 16 diseases and conditions, PE activities are cited in more than 1.01% of the total number of publications. The progression of the publications on PE is relatively less important than that concerning the chronic diseases over the last 10 years period. On the contrary, the proportion of reviews, RCT studies and meta-analyses appears more important in the studies on PE. Conclusion: Our study shows that PE publications in chronic diseases have clearly increased over the years, indicating that PE practice is more and more considered of scientific interest