Endocrine Abstracts

Adrenal insufficiency (AI) patients who are deprived of regular steroid replacement therapy rapidly become unwell. However, the interval for which AI patients might safely be withdrawn from steroid medication for clinical purposes, such as re-assessment of adrenal reserve, is largely a matter of speculation, since it would be difficult to construct an ethical trial on this matter. Valuable insights into this dilemma can be gained from the case studies of an early clinical rese...

Background: The incidence of adrenal crisis remains constant, despite the introduction of behavioural interventions to educate and empower patients. To increase the success of future behaviour change interventions, theoretically informed and empirically supported behaviour change frameworks are available. The current review aimed to identify and evaluate available evidence of interventions used to prevent adrenal crisis in people with primary adrenal insufficiency to inform fu...

Background: Behavioural interventions have been developed to empower patients with adrenal insufficiency and prevent adrenal crisis. Behavioural theory, such as the theoretical domains framework, can inform future intervention development. The current systematic review aims to describe what techniques have been employed in previous interventions and highlight neglected behavioural barriers that could be targeted in future interventions.Methods: We perfor...

Adrenal crisis and death still occur frequently in people with adrenal insufficiency, despite interventions being developed to prevent this. Interventions focus on increasing patients’ knowledge of their medication, their condition, and the action to take during acute stress. It is not known why the application of this knowledge does not happen during times of need. Behaviour change models/frameworks can aid the understanding of this knowledge gap. We performed a systema...