ReMonit
Digital home follow-up of patients with spondyloarthritis
Project managers
Post doc
PhD fellow
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Spondyloarthritis is a serious, chronic, rheumatic joint disease that requires frequent and lifelong follow-up in the specialist health service. The purpose of this three-arm randomized controlled trial is to investigate whether two new strategies for follow-up are as good as the current follow-up with regular physical attendance at the outpatient clinic in relation to maintaining low disease activity over time.
Experience and results from this study could potentially change how patients with spondyloarthritis are followed up by the specialist health service in the future.
WHO CAN JOIN?
Patients aged 18 and older with a diagnosis of spondyloarthritis at Diakonhjemmet hospital will be recruited if they meet the inclusion criteria such as low disease activity and stable drug treatment for the past six months.
Recruitment of participants for the study has ended.
WHAT DOES THE STUDY INCLUDE?
Group 1 will receive follow-up as it is done today with a questionnaire, blood tests and physical consultations at the hospital every 6 months. The participants in groups 2 and 3 will not be set up for scheduled consultations, but they will be asked to download an app (MyDignio) where they can answer disease-related questions and upload pictures of blood test results. They will also be asked to wear an activity monitor (simple watch) that measures the number of daily steps and the number of minutes of medium and high intensity physical activity. Around 15 of the participants will also test out measuring C-reactive protein (CRP) from home. Participants can also send messages to healthcare personnel through the app.
For group 2, healthcare personnel will monitor questionnaire responses and activity data with a view to uncovering any significant worsening of the disease. Health personnel can then contact the patients by phone or send a message in the Dignio application to assess the need for a visit to the hospital or a video consultation.
The participants in group 3 will not be set up for regular consultations, but will, in the same way as groups 1 and 2, be instructed to contact healthcare personnel at the hospital if they experience a significant worsening of symptoms and believe that they should be assessed by healthcare personnel .
In addition to self-reported data on symptoms and function, patients will report adverse events, coping, quality of life, health service consumption, work participation and physical activity level. We will also collect data from four national registers for health service consumption, drug use and sickness absence as well as blood test results registered in the patient record.