Factors influencing the prescription of intensive combination treatment strategies for early rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVES: Despite the availability and demonstrated effectiveness of intensive combination treatment strategies (ICTS) for early rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a discrepancy seems to exist between theoretical evidence and actual prescription in daily practice. The purpose of this study was to explore and identify the factors influencing the prescription of ICTS. METHOD: This study involved rheumatologists and nurses participating in the Care for Rheumatoid Arthritis (CareRA) trial, a multicentre randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing different ICTS for early RA with conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) plus step-down glucocorticoids (GCs). A qualitative study was carried out using individual semi-structured interviews. Each interview was recorded, transcribed literally, and analysed thematically. In addition, observations at outpatient clinics were used to clarify the interpretation of the results. RESULTS: We interviewed 26 rheumatologists and six nurses and observed five outpatient visits. Identified facilitators included available scientific evidence, personal faith in treatment strategy, staff support, and low treatment costs. Rheumatologists had no doubts about the value of methotrexate (MTX) but some questioned the value of combination strategy, others the effectiveness and/or the dosage of individual compounds. Additional barriers for prescribing ICTS included need for patient education, fear for patients' preconceptions, concerns about applicability to the individual patient, difficulties with breaking routine, interference with organizational structures and processes, time constraints, and lack of financial support. CONCLUSIONS: A heterogeneous set of factors highlights the complexity of prescribing ICTS for early RA in daily clinical practice. Future improvement strategies should stimulate the facilitators while at the same time addressing the barriers. The generalizability of these findings to other health care systems needs further examination.

Development of quality indicators for monitoring of the disease course in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVES: To suppress rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients' disease activity, it should be periodically measured and patients should be treated on the basis of the disease activity outcomes. Insight into the actual care, by using quality indicators, is the first step in achieving optimal care. The objective of this study was to develop a set of quality indicators to evaluate RA disease course monitoring of rheumatologists in daily clinical practice. METHODS: A RAND-modified Delphi method in a five-step procedure was applied: a literature search for quality indicators and recommendations about disease course monitoring; a first questionnaire round; a consensus meeting; a second questionnaire round and drawing up the final set. RESULTS: The systematic procedure resulted in the development of 18 quality indicators: 10 process, five structure and three outcome indicators that describe seven domains of disease course monitoring: schedule follow-up visits; measure disease activity; functional impairment; structural damage; change medication; preconditions for measuring disease activity and outcome measures in terms of disease activity. CONCLUSIONS: This quality indicator set can be used to assess the quality of disease course monitoring of rheumatologists in daily clinical practice, and to determine for which aspects of disease course monitoring rheumatologists perform well, or where there is room for improvement. This information can be used to improve the quality of disease course monitoring.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients and rheumatologists approach the decision to escalate care differently: results of a maximum difference scaling experiment.

OBJECTIVE: Antirheumatic treatment is frequently not appropriately modified, according to American College of Rheumatology guidelines, in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as defined by a Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28) score greater than 3.2. The objective of this study was to determine which factors most strongly influence patients' and rheumatologists' decisions to escalate care. METHODS: We administered a Maximum Difference Scaling survey to 106 rheumatologists and 213 patients with RA. The survey included 58 factors related to the decision to escalate care in RA. Participants answered 24 choice tasks. In each task, participants were asked to choose the most important factor from a set of 5. We used hierarchical Bayes modeling to generate the mean relative importance score (RIS) for each factor. RESULTS: For rheumatologists, the 5 most influential factors were number of swollen joints (mean ± SD RIS 5.2 ± 0.4), DAS28 score (mean ± SD RIS 5.2 ± 0.5), physician global assessment of disease activity (mean ± SD RIS 5.2 ± 0.6), worsening erosions over the last year (mean ± SD RIS 5.2 ± 0.5), and RA disease activity now compared to 3 months ago (mean ± SD RIS 5.1 ± 0.6). For patients, the 5 most important factors were current level of physical functioning (mean ± SD RIS 4.3 ± 1.1), motivation to get better (mean ± SD RIS 3.5 ± 1.4), trust in their rheumatologist (mean ± SD RIS 3.5 ± 1.6), satisfaction with current disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (mean ± SD RIS 3.4 ± 1.4), and current number of painful joints (mean ± SD RIS 3.4 ± 1.4). CONCLUSION: Factors influencing the decision to escalate care differ between rheumatologists and patients. Better communication between patients and their physicians may improve treatment planning in RA patients with active disease.