Patient Education Little Help for Rheumatoid Arthritis Sufferers

Patient education programs designed to give sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis strategies and tools to help cope with their disease produce only small, short-lived benefits, according to an editorial appearing in the British Medical Journal.

A recent review assessed the effectiveness of education programs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, based on a systematic study of the various clinical trials. The review focused on the effects of patient education on pain, disability, number of joints with pain, patients' and doctors' assessments, as well as other measurements of the disease.

Small, but statistically significant, benefits of patient education were seen for scores on disability, joint counts, patients' global assessment, psychological status, and depression.

However, patient education was found to have two major drawbacks, according to the authors. First, its statistically significant benefits are modest. In comparison to no intervention, patient education gave a 4 percent decrease in pain, 10 percent improvement in disability, 12 percent improvement on depression scores, and other small improvements according to various indexes.

Secondly, the benefits of patient education are short lived. At final follow-up (up to one year after the intervention) no significant benefits were found. Even studies that included "booster sessions" did not demonstrate long-term benefits.

"Available evidence about patient education programs for adults with rheumatoid arthritis shows that these programs have clear but relatively small benefits that are short lived," concluded the researchers. "Their clinical significance is unclear, as are the relations between changes in behavior and changes in health outcomes."

Other sources: British Medical Journal