Prescription for Education: Development, Evaluation, and Implementation of a Successful Interprofessional Education Program for Adults with Inflammatory Arthritis

Objective. To assess the feasibility of recruitment and standardize care delivery for an interprofessional program for inflammatory arthritis education (Prescription for Education, or RxEd), and to explore outcomes relevant to arthritis patient education. Methods. A patient-based needs assessment and ongoing patient feedback guided program development. An interprofessional team was involved in developing program content and delivering and adapting the program to patient needs. A quasiexperimental, waitlisted control with crossover design was used to evaluate the program. Data were collected at baseline. immediately following intervention, at 6 months (when the crossover control group received intervention), and at 1 year. Self-report measures included demographics, disorder-related data, Arthritis Self-efficacy Scale, arthritis knowledge, coping efficacy, and illness intrusiveness. Analysis included baseline comparisons and longitudinal trends; direct between-group comparison at 6 months; and generalized estimating equations (GEE) analysis to evaluate the main effect of the intervention on the primary outcome (arthritis self-efficacy) and secondary outcomes. Results. Program modifications based on patient input made recruitment possible. Forty-two persons participated (including 19 controls), with 93% followup at 1 year. Comparison of change shows moderate effect sizes (standardized effect size 0.5 to 0.7). GEE analysis showed significant main effect, before to after the program, in both groups for primary outcome (arthritis self-efficacy) and most secondary outcomes. Conclusion. Program feasibility was dependent on patient feedback. Our pilot study provides evidence that the RxEd program is feasible and improves arthritis self-efficacy and other outcomes. (First Release July 15 2011: J Rheumatol 2011;38:2247-57; doi:10.3899/jrheum.101307)