A TELEPHONE FOLLOW-UP AFTER AN INTEGRATED OUTPATIENT OSTEOARTHRITIS INTERVENTION DOES NOT ENHANCE PATIENT HEALTH AT 12 MONTHS – RESULTS FROM A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a frequent chronic musculoskeletal disorder. Patient education is a recommended core treatment, and telephone follow-up has been suggested to improve adherence. Objectives: To examine the effect of a reminder telephone call on health status 4 months after an outpatient visit for patients with hand, hip, knee or generalized OA. Methods: Patients with clinical OA had attended an integrated outpatient OA clinic and half of them an additional 3.5h multidisciplinary group based intervention. After 4 months, all patients were randomized to a 10 minutes telephone follow-up, or no such follow-up. Outcomes included pain, fatigue, and stiffness (NRS, 0-10), Western Ontario and McMaster- (WOMAC) (0-30, 0 is best) and Australian/Canadian (AUSCAN) (0-10, 0 is best) hand- (0-10, 0 is best) osteoarthritis indexes. Group differences were examined by mixed model analyses with random intercept, adjusted for baseline values. Results: Of 390 patients, 86.4% (n=337) were women, and mean age (SD) was 63.1 (8.0) years. There were no significant differences in patient reported health status between the groups at 12 months followup. Table 1. Differences between telephone follow-up vs. usual follow-up on patient health status at 12 months (n=390) OutcomeTelephone follow-upNo follow-upDifference 12 months12 months(95% CI) Pain (0–10)5.09 (4.7, 5.5)5.11 (4.90, 5.31)0.03 (−0.38, 0.44) Fatigue (0–10)4.45 (3.97, 4.93)4.25 (3.98, 4.52)−0.20 (−0.70, 0.30) Stiffness (0–10)5.25 (4.81, 5.68)5.20 (4.96, 5.43)−0.05 (−0.52, 0.42) AUSCAN pain4.81 (4.50, 5.12)4.72 (4.53, 4.92)−0.09 (−0.40, 0.21) AUSCAN stiffness4.78 (4.36, 5.20)4.63 (4.40, 4.87)−0.14 (−0.58, 0.29) AUSCAN physical4.74 (4.42, 5.06)4.78 (4.56, 4.99)−0.04 (−0.26, 0.33) WOMAC pain3.54 (3.16, 3.93)3.71 (3.48, 3.94)0.16 (−0.24, 0.56) WOMAC stiffness4.36 (3.93, 4.80)4.48 (4.23, 4.73)0.12 (−0.33, 0.57) WOMAC physical3.33 (2.98, 3.68)3.45 (3.22, 3.68)0.12 (−0.23, 0.46) *Mixed models, adjusted for baseline values. Conclusions: A single telephone call follow-up at 4 month after a visit to an OA outpatient clinic did not impact patient reported health outcomes at 12 months. Disclosure of Interest: None declared DOI: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.5860Citation: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, volume 73, supplement 2, year 2014, page 1230Session: Miscellaneous forms of clinical care (Abstracts accepted for publication )