Rheumatology team care: A patient survey
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Are patients’ supported to self-manage their inflammatory rheumatic disease? A patient survey about the care provided by rheumatology teams
IRAS ID
227413
Contact name
Emma Dures
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of the West of England
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 30 days
Research summary
This study is aiming to understand whether rheumatology patients' feel they are supported and involved in decisions about their care.
Previous research has demonstrated that there is a lack of support from rheumatology teams to help patients self-manage. Our research with over 1000 patients showed that many would like support with the effects of symptoms, managing emotions, and depression. However, rheumatology teams rate the support they can offer as inadequate, and one of the main reasons is the lack of appropriate skills-training for healthcare professionals. To address this, a body of work was initiated to develop and deliver a skills-training package for rheumatology teams to enhance support for self-management. This skills-training package will be delivered to rheumatology teams as part of service development work. We propose that the level of support for self-management (and thus quality of usual care) will be improved by the rheumatology team attending this training. This study aims to evaluate this from the patient perspective.
To do this, patients attending routine appointments at local rheumatology departments where skills-training has been delivered will be asked to complete a survey. Surveys will be handed out at three time points: before rheumatology team training; two months after rheumatology team training; four months after rheumatology team training. At each time point we would like to collect approximately 150 returned surveys from each site. This will allow us to compare data overall and by site. These data will demonstrate levels of patients’ experiences of support for self-management in routine consultations, whether these change over time, when, and in which direction. The study will be performed between July 2017 and August 2018. If the results suggest that the skills-training package is beneficial for teams’ clinical practice and supports patient self-management, we will seek endorsement and focus on implementation.
REC name
North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NW/0363
Date of REC Opinion
6 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion