BMJ 2001;323:985-989 ( 27 October )

Education and debate

Recommendations for patients undertaking self management of oral anticoagulation

D A Fitzmaurice, senior lecturer aS J Machin, professor b on behalf of the British Society of Haematology Task Force for Haemostasis and Thrombosis.

a Department of Primary Care and General Practice, Medical School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, b Department of Haematology, University College London Hospital, London WC1E 6DB

Correspondence to: D A Fitzmaurice d.a.fitzmaurice@bham.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This paper aims to provide guidance for clinicians, based on the evidence available regarding the clinical effectiveness and health economics of the self management of oral anticoagulation therapy by patients. The paper focuses on self management, in which patients measure their own international normalised ratio and interpret the result themselves, as opposed to self testing, in which patients measure their own international normalised ratio but have to contact a health professional for interpretation of the results. The need to provide guidance and recommendations has been driven by patients' demand for self management at primary and secondary care levels. This demand has been fuelled partly by a national media advertising campaign promoting self management by patients using a particular near patient device (CoaguChek, Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim) to test their international normalised ratios. This paper follows on from evidence based guidelines for the therapeutic management of warfarin that were published by the . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Self management of oral anticoagulation: randomised trial
D A Fitzmaurice, E T Murray, D McCahon, R Holder, J P Raftery, S Hussain, H Sandhar, and F D R Hobbs
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