A Study of Home Therapy in Hemophilia Patients

Moon, Hyeok Soo; Huh, Jae Seong; Lee, Oh Kyung; Kim, Mi Kyung

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Home therapy has merits, enabling rapid treatment thereby reducing complications, but difficulty with venous access is a barrier to treatment. There is a paucity of data on this. This study investigated the current status of home therapy for patients with hemophilia, and examined problems and potential solutions.
METHODS
Patients and their families who were performing home therapy and who attended the camp of the Korea Hemophilia Association in 2014 were asked to complete questionnaires. The questionnaires pertained to complications of infusion and whether (or not) factor infusion was properly performed. Responses were scored on a scale from 1-5, with a high frequency of complications and adequate performance of infusion being allocated relatively higher scores.
RESULTS
The mean score of complications arising from infusion was 1.56±0.46. This was relatively low and was not correlated with the factor infusion training method. The performance of home therapy obtained a relatively high score: 4.46±0.56. The performance score was significantly higher for patients who had practiced infusion with medical personnel, an injection simulator or a video clip.
CONCLUSION
Although most patients properly performed home therapy, further improvement is needed in training of infusion and keeping records of bleeds. It is essential to establish guidelines on home therapy, develop a standardized patient and family training program, and reinforce the role of hemophilia treatment centers in educating patients and their families.