Study: Personalized Information in Mail Benefits Arthritis Patients

Personalized healthcare information sent through the mail appears to benefit arthritis patients but not patients with such conditions as diabetes and high blood pressure, according to a report in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Patients with chronic arthritis who received healthcare information in the mail also made an average of 4.84 fewer visits to their doctor over a period of 30 months, compared with a control group who did not receive the materials, researchers at the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Ohio reported.

Researchers tested the effectiveness of healthcare information mailings with 593 members of the Kaiser Permanente of Ohio managed care plan. All members were between the ages of 18 and 64 and had chronic high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis or a combination of these conditions that brought them to outpatient care at least 11 times each year over a two-year period.

Half of the patients received regular mailings of personalized questionnaires, individual feedback on their returned questionnaires, health education materials on their specific condition and a health information handbook at regular intervals throughout the study. The other half of the participants received only condition-specific health education materials at the end of the study's first year.

The overall health status of the arthritis patients receiving the mailings improved significantly, while overall health for the diabetes and high blood pressure patients who received the mailings did not change, according to the researchers.

Researchers speculate that mailings and other similar interventions may have a greater impact on conditions that greatly impair function, such as arthritis, rather than conditions that cause less functional impairment, like high blood pressure.

Other sources: American Journal of Health Promotion