Photo Credit: ArLawKa AungTun

Men seeking urologic care, either through self-referral or clinician referral, often have knowledge gaps in BPH symptoms and treatment.

“The treatment landscape of [benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)] has evolved drastically over the past 2 decades with expanding pharmacotherapy, uptake of minimally invasive surgical therapies (MISTs), and introduction of other novel technologies, such as robotic waterjet treatment, each with unique risks,” Smita De, MD, PhD, and colleagues wrote. “Therefore, patients must take an active role in understanding both their condition and goals to select the optimal treatment.”

However, limited research has examined patient knowledge of BPH and its treatment options, despite the importance of shared decision-making in managing this condition, the researchers continued.

For a study published in Urology, Dr. De and colleagues examined patient knowledge about BPH, given the availability of readily available information online, as well as factors associated with knowledge gaps among patients presenting to a urology clinic for the first time. They also discussed strategies for improving patient knowledge of BPH.

Lack of Knowledge Around BPH Symptomatology & Treatment

In total, 206 men (mean age, 60.8; 85.6% White) completed the survey used by Dr. De and colleagues to assess patient knowledge.

On average, survey respondents answered 61.5% of questions correctly. Nearly all patients were aware of BPH as a cause for lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), and most (83.5%) correctly stated that BPH is associated with age, 71.4% knew it could cause urinary retention.

Most respondents (69.9%) knew that there was at least one medical treatment for BPH. Knowledge of oral prescription treatments ranged from 2.4% to 51.9% depending on the specific agent. Nearly half of the patients (41.3%) had not heard of any BPH procedures mentioned in the survey, including robot-assisted simple prostatectomy, simple prostatectomy, and transurethral resection of the prostate.

Strategies for Improving Awareness

The findings show that “there remain significant knowledge gaps about BPH among men seeking urologic care,” Dr. De and colleagues wrote.

Further, “unlike conditions that cause pain or obvious signs of a medical condition like hematuria, symptoms of BPH can be insidious in onset and/or normalized in society, making it challenging for patients to identify that there is a problem and that they should seek care.”

Dr. De and colleagues also suggested that the findings represent a chance to improve educational tools for both clinicians and patients. Specific strategies to achieve this focus on patient visits, include repeating counseling efforts and the dissemination of educational materials. They outlined tools that are already in development toward this goal, in the form of high quality, patient-directed educational materials to improve BPH knowledge, at both organizations such as the Urology Care Foundation and in various hospital systems.

“Prior work has demonstrated that repeated conversations are effective at improving patient understanding of long-term risks and implications of their medical conditions,” the researchers wrote. “Given that our study shows limited patient understanding of BPH complications, patients may benefit from additional conversations and other sources of information about BPH to help them better understand sequelae of disease progression. Ideally, people would be armed with adequate information and seek care as early as possible in their disease course.”