Abstract
Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with a slowly progressive course. Information was obtained through a questionnaire on 114 outpatients. As many as 60.5% of the patients wanted to know more about the entire course of the disease. Approximately 30% of the patients were interested in drug therapy and its adverse effects, available social resources, proper feeding, home safety measures, and rehabilitation. These results prompted us to develop an outpatient critical path providing information essential to the decision-making process by the patients. Multidisciplinary information was described in the style of Gantt chart with an abscissa in Yahr stages. The information included an overview of the symptoms and complications of the disease, treatment, rehabilitation, and available social resources. In the CP also indicated is how to obtain detailed information.
After reading the CP, approximately 60% of the patients answered that they became more informed about the symptoms and the entire course of the disease. As a measure of patient satisfaction, we determined the ratio of patients who felt to be informed by reading the CP to patients who needed information. The ratio was 65.2% for information about symptoms and complications and 56.9 % for about the entire course of the disease. This CP is a useful tool for the provision of multidisciplinary information.
