Effects of Case Management for Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis in Taiwan

Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Effectiveness; Case Management; Rheumatoid Arthritis

Treatments: Other: Case management

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06341348

Dalin Tzuchi Hospital

Details and patient eligibility

About

Case management (CM) has been recommended as a way of inspiring measurable changes in individual behaviors and improving clinical outcomes for patients with chronic diseases. However, data on its effectiveness for Taiwanese patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are limited. This study aimed to determine the long-term effectiveness of CM that focused on nurses' role among Taiwanese RA patients.

A quasi-experimental pre-post test, control-group study with purposive sampling recruited RA patients from a hospital in Taiwan during 2016-2017. CM program was composed of health education sessions and follow-up telephone consultations over a six-month period. A review of medical records and structured questionnaires yielded data about patient demographics and disease characteristics, and included Chinese version of the Arthritis Self-Efficacy Scale and the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire. A comparison of the long-term effectiveness of the CM program was made using generalized estimating equation.

This evidence-based study may be beneficial to characterize the long-term effectiveness of CM for Taiwanese patients with RA, and may be a reference for healthcare providers in facilitating the provision of appropriate interventions to improve the adaptation processes and clinical outcomes for them.

Full description

Nurse-led case management integrates a multi-component intervention comprised of health education and professional advice, as well as referral of clients to other health care team members, discussion of daily life plans, making an appointment for the next clinic, and conducting follow-up sessions by telephone.

Enrollment: 96 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 20 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• being at least 20 years old at the time of recruitment
• being able to express opinions in either Mandarin or Taiwanese, and
• having a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Exclusion criteria

• Those having no cognitive impairment and severe complications will be excluded.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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96 participants in 1 patient group

Effect of case management for rheumatoid arthritis cases

Other group

Description:

Case management (CM) applied is multi-component interventions, that comprised the provision of health education and professional advice, referring the client to another health care team, discussing a daily life plan, making reservations, and follow-up by telephone. As the control group, they received usual health education lasting for about 15 minutes per medical visit from ward nurses, which consisted of consultation in terms of disease symptoms, related treatments or the doctor's orders. They were also free to ask questions of the research team, their ward nurses and physicians at any time within the study period.

Treatment:

Other: Case management