Background: Education may induce voluntary behavioral changes in patients that lead to an improvement in health status.
Aim: To assess the impact of the educational manual "Aches and Pain" on knowledge and attitudes of patients with chronic rheumatism and paramedics, using an instrument with 40 asseverations extracted from the manual.
Patients and methods: Seventy seven patients and 42 paramedics were studied. The assessment instrument was responded before and after reading chapters of the manual, selected by the authors. Knowledge was quantified according to the number of correct answers. Adaptation to disease, optimism and self help capacity were the evaluated attitudes, using a five point scale.
Results: The study was completed by 48 patients and 42 paramedics. Knowledge improved from 19.9 +/- 5.3 to 25.6 +/-6.15 correct answers in the former and from 23.6 +/- 4.9 to 30.3 +/- 5.5 in the latter (p < 0.001). In patients there were improvements in the degree of adaptation to disease from 3.6 +/- 0.9 to 4.0 +/- 0.8 and in self-help capacity from 4.0 +/- 0.8 to 4.3 +/- 0.8; optimism did not improve significantly.
Conclusions: The educational manual had an impact on knowledge and improved rheumatic patient's attitudes towards the disease.