A study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology found that the use of a smartphone 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.
Yvonne C. Lee, MD, and colleagues randomly assigned 191 patients with RA 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 6 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 6 months. The median CDAI score was 8 and 10 in the intervention and control groups, respectively, at 6 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.
