Mehealth® for Rheumatoid Arthritis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Mehealth® for Rheumatoid Arthritis: A patient-centred approach to monitoring health status in early RA
IRAS ID
186906
Contact name
Arthur Pratt
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
7676, R+D Reference Number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
People with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) should have frequent, regular check-ups by specialist rheumatology teams during the early stages of their disease. This is to ensure that RA "disease activity" can be carefully monitored, and treatments (so-called disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, DMARDs) can be adjusted as needed. These disease activity assessments, carried out in monthly “DMARD escalation clinics” during the first 6 months of treatment, usually require that patients make frequent visits to see their medical team in the hospital.
New methods have been developed for assessing RA disease activity, which, rather than always being dependent upon blood tests and physical examinations by hospital professionals, can be calculated from information provided by patients alone. These are called “patient reported outcome measures” (PROMs). PROMs could allow RA patients’ disease activity to be monitored “remotely” – that is, without the need for hospital visits.
In this project we will test out ("pilot") a newly developed internet application, which allows recently diagnosed RA patients to send “PROM” information about their disease activity to their hospital team using electronic devices (smart ‘phones, tablets or computers). The particular PROM of disease activity that we will be focussing on in this project is called the RADAI-5 score. The aims of the project are (i) to check that measuring disease status using RADAI-5 in this way is just as reliable as the more traditional method (called the DAS28 method) that is traditionally carried out in hospitals, (ii) to check that the electronic system that records RADAI-5 “talks to” NHS computer systems efficiently so that doctors and nurses can quickly see and act on the information patients provide, and (iii) to see what patients and medical teams think of this new approach when they try it out.
REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NE/0068
Date of REC Opinion
9 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion