Educational support groups of patients with ankylosing spondylitis: a preliminary report.

Educational support groups (ESGs) for patients with ankylosing spondylitis were found to significantly (P less than 0.01) increase knowledge about the disease and its treatment. Compliance of participants with their prescribed exercise programs was improved, although the improvement did not achieve statistical significance. Compliance with prescribed application of heat to joints was not changed. Control patients showed no substantial changes in knowledge or compliance. Although analysis of pretest and posttest responses on a questionnaire did not indicate that the ESGs enhanced the patients' ability to cope with ankylosing spondylitis or their perception of the adequacy of family relationships with regard to the disease, verbal feedback concerning these areas was positive in most cases. Patients did not express negative feelings about the thought of meeting another person with ankylosing spondylitis whose disease was less severe or whose coping ability was greater or less than their own. Two patients who initially believed that they would feel threatened if they were to meet a more severely ill patient relinquished that concern after ESG participation.