App to Monitor RA Symptoms Does Not Improve Disease Outcomes

Use of a smartphone application (app) to monitor patient-reported outcomes does not improve satisfaction or disease outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but patients are likely to recommend the app, according to a study recently published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Yvonne C. Lee, M.D., from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues randomly assigned 191 RA patients to care coordination with an app to monitor longitudinal electronic patient-reported outcomes or care coordination alone. To assess for flares, a care coordinator contacted participants at six and 18 weeks. The global satisfaction score from the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM), the score from the Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI) Questionnaire, and the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) score were the main outcome measures.

The researchers found that in both groups, the median TSQM score was 83.3 and median PEPPI score was 50 at six months. The median CDAI score was 8 and 10 in the intervention and control groups, respectively, at six months. Ninety percent of the 67 intervention participants who completed the exit survey rated their likelihood of recommending the app as ≥7 out of 10. Seventy-three percent of the 11 physicians who completed the exit survey agreed/strongly agreed that they wanted to continue offering the app to patients.

"No statistically significant differences were found for the primary outcome measures of treatment satisfaction, perception of the patient-provider interaction, and disease activity, but both patients and physicians viewed the app favorably," the authors write.

Two authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.