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Tool assessed educational needs for RA, PsA, hand osteoarthritis patients
Educational needs varied with personal characteristics for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and hand osteoarthritis when assessed through an Austrian-German questionnaire, according to recent study results.
Researchers developed an Austrian-German educational needs assessment tool (OENAT) based on the English ENAT, a self-report questionnaire, by using Beaton’s cross-cultural adaptation process. Survey questions covered seven domains: managing pain, movement, feelings, arthritis process, treatments, self-help measures and support systems. Educational needs, gender, disease activity and function of 130 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA; mean age, 56 years; 75% women), 125 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA; mean age, 51 years; 45% women) and 48 patients with hand osteoarthritis (HOA; mean age, 64 years; 83% women) were assessed.
Mean disease duration was 11 years for RA and PsA patients and 14 years for HOA.
More than 70% of all patients sought education regarding their disease, and those needs differed among diseases and sexes. Women in the RA and PsA groups displayed higher education needs than men in “movements” and “feelings” domains (P=.04 and P=.03 for RA; P<.01 and P=.01 for PsA). Higher scores on all domains except for “movements” were expressed by HOA women compared with men.
For “pain,” older patients had higher scores compared with younger patients in the PsA group (P=.05). Higher educational needs in “movements” were exhibited by RA patients with disease duration exceeding 5 years (P<.01).
“Educational background had an effect in the PsA group only, patients with basic education had greater scores than those with higher education on ‘movements’ and ‘arthritis process’ (P=.01),” the researchers reported.
DAS28 among RA patients correlated with “movements” (r=0.24; P=.01), “feelings” (r= 0.22; P=.02) and “treatments” (r=0.22; P=.03). All OENAT domains correlated with disease activity among PsA patients.
“[The OENAT] is a useful instrument to guide physicians and health professionals in the development of targeted patient-centered educational programs for patients with arthritis,” the researchers concluded.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.