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Project

The Future of Early Rheumatoid Arthritis Management: From Disease Control to Patient Wellbeing

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a prevalent chronic condition characterised by pain and swelling in the joints. Early RA patients have nowadays a good long-term outcome if treated optimally. However, 2 challenges remain unaddressed in early RA care. Firstly, many patients can reach a state of sufficient disease control as defined by clinical criteria. However, these criteria fail to consider the patient’s perspective. Thus, patients can perceive their disease as uncontrolled while clinical measures indicate the opposite. A second unaddressed challenge is how patient reported data are currently captured in RA studies. Patients with RA are seen at intervals of months or years. Mobile health (mhealth) data via smartphones or watches gives us a method to capture more patient reported data more frequently, increasing the possibility to predict a good treatment outcome as perceived by both clinician and patient. This FWO project has 3 objectives to address these unmet needs. Firstly, I will cluster RA patients based not only on clinical but also on a unique set of patient reported outcomes to identify groups with dis- or concordant disease perspectives. Secondly, I will evaluate the long-term health effects of these groups. Thirdly, I will construct a mhealth application and initiate a pilot field study to evaluate its use in RA treatment. These objectives will evaluate if patient reported outcomes can improve disease control criteria to improve wellbeing among patients with early RA.

Date:1 Oct 2018 →  31 Oct 2021
Keywords:Rheumatoid Arthritis
Disciplines:Public health care, Public health sciences, Public health services, Laboratory medicine, Palliative care and end-of-life care, Regenerative medicine, Other basic sciences, Other health sciences, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Other translational sciences, Other medical and health sciences