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Study demonstrates OMERACT RA flare questions are reliable for flare identification
Results from this study indicated the Outcomes Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials rheumatoid arthritis flare questions were able to differentiate between patients with flares and patients without flares, demonstrating strong evidence for construct and consequential validity.
Researchers administered candidate Outcomes Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials rheumatoid arthritis (RA) flare questions and legacy measures to 849 patients from the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort study from November 2011 to November 2014. Investigators also recorded the American College of Rheumatology core set flare indicators. With the agreement coefficient, concordance to flare identification was assessed. The Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to examine the construct validity of the questions on flares which included convergent, discriminant and consequential validity.
Results showed out of the 849 patients, 75% were women; 81% were white; and 42% were in readmission/low disease activity. Investigators noted 16% to 32% of patients had flares at the second visit. There was low-strong agreement in flare status which was inversely associated with the RA disease activity levels.
According to researchers, the flare domains were significantly associated with each other; the patient global and other corresponding measures; and had moderately high association with doctor and patient-reported joint counts. When the doctors and patients were in agreement that the patients were flaring, the mean differences between the groups were 2.1 to 3. The study showed 36% of patients had treatment reductions before the flares, while escalation of treatment was planned in 61%. ‒ by Monica Jaramillo
Disclosures: Bykerk is supported by the Cedar Hill Foundation and by NIH grant (1UH2AR067691). Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.