Nordic Walking for People with Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Developing and Refining an Acceptable Nordic Walking Intervention for People with Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases

  • IRAS ID

    241484

  • Contact name

    Melissa J Domaille

  • Contact email

    mdmjd@bristol.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University Hospitals of Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    years, 10 months, days

  • Research summary

    Our aim is to establish whether Nordic Walking (NW) is acceptable as an intervention for people with inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases (IRD); Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Connective Tissue Diseases and any other systemic inflammatory disease.

    IRD are conditions affecting the musculoskeletal and other systems which can cause pain on movement but for which movement has been demonstrated to be beneficial. Many people with IRD take less exercise than they did before they were diagnosed and have difficulty regaining their fitness.

    NW uses two poles which help support the person’s body weight, putting less stress on lower limb joints and our patient and public involvement work to date has indicated that people with IRD are likely to want to try this form of physical activity and may find it beneficial.

    Up to 12 people with IRD will be offered once weekly NW sessions over a 12 week time period. Their experiences will be evaluated via a focus group, interview or telephone call after completion of the sessions and they will be asked to complete a patient reported standardised assessment of physical function and of self-efficacy at the start and at the final session. The intervention will then be refined based on the experiences of the first group and a further set of 12 sessions of NW will be delivered with new participants. A further focus group and interviews will qualitatively evaluate the experiences of this second group.

  • REC name

    South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    18/SW/0073

  • Date of REC Opinion

    29 Mar 2018

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion