BRIDGE - completed project
Continuity and quality in the rehabilitation of patients with diseases and ailments in the musculoskeletal system
Project managers
Post doc
PhD fellow
ABOUT THE PROJECT, WHICH HAS BEEN COMPLETED
People with rheumatic diseases may need rehabilitation one or more times during the course of their illness. Many of these people receive such rehabilitation services in specialist health services, with expected follow-up after discharge from institutions relevant to the individual patient. Public evaluations of rehabilitation services have pointed out suboptimal quality of such courses, with insufficient patient involvement and services that are poorly coordinated and poorly coordinated.
The BRIDGE project's goal was to improve continuity and quality in the rehabilitation process for each patient, across levels of the health service and other involved sectors such as NAV, employment and education. We developed a rehabilitation program that was intended to function as a bridge between specialist health services and primary health care, to achieve a course that was coherent and coordinated. The elements of the program were: Individual rehabilitation goals, written plans with measures to achieve the goals, including the patient's own efforts and follow-up from relevant institutions. Other elements were visual reports for feedback on progression along the way, and the use of motivational interviewing to ensure a high degree of patient involvement from goal setting to follow-up over time.
Read the results brochure in this PDF!
WHO CAN JOIN?
Recruitment has ended.
Included patients were adults in need of multidisciplinary rehabilitation in specialist health services due to the following diseases: Inflammatory rheumatic disease, connective tissue disease, osteoarthritis, unspecified pain in the neck, shoulder or lower back, and fibromyalgia or widespread pain syndrome.
WHAT DOES THE STUDY INVOLVE?
The study had two main purposes:
- to evaluate the effect of the BRIDGE program on patient-reported goal achievement, function, and health-related quality of life, compared with traditional rehabilitation programs at eight rehabilitation sites in Norway.
- to measure, monitor and improve quality in the rehabilitation process. This includes the use of quality indicators, reported by both patients and healthcare professionals.
Other purposes were to investigate whether good follow-up after returning home predicts high goal achievement, improved quality of life and function one year after the start of the rehabilitation process, as well as to examine the patients' experience with the BRIDGE program. BRIDGE was designed as a randomized controlled trial with a staircase design. That is, each center switched from control (current rehabilitation program) to intervention (by adding the BRIDGE program) in a predetermined, randomized order. The patients who participated were followed up for one year with electronic data collection at entry, exit and after 2, 7 and 12 months. Within this design, sub-studies have been conducted that consist of both quantitative surveys and qualitative approaches that have included research interviews with patients and healthcare professionals. Data collection was completed in June 2019. We are now working on data analysis and dissemination.