Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan 22;11(1):e041935.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041935.

Barriers, facilitators, preferences and expectations of joint protection programmes for patients with hand arthritis: a cross-sectional survey

Pavlos Bobos  1   2   3 , Joy MacDermid  4   5   6   7 , Christina Ziebart  6   7 , Eleni Boutsikari  8 , Emily Lalone  7   9 , Louis Ferreira  7   9 , Ruby Grewal  7
Affiliations

Barriers, facilitators, preferences and expectations of joint protection programmes for patients with hand arthritis: a cross-sectional survey

Pavlos Bobos et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: The objective of this survey was to investigate the barriers, facilitators, expectations and patient preferences regarding joint protection (JP) programmes in people with hand arthritis.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Tertiary clinic.

Participants: Patients with hand arthritis: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and other forms of arthritis.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: This study used a survey among people with hand arthritis. Descriptive statistics and percentages were reported for all the data about the barriers, facilitators and preferences around JP.

Results: A total of 192 patients consented to participate. Most of the patients (82%) were unaware of JP. Factors that may act as barriers to participation and were regarded as 'a very big concern' were: cost of the programme (44%), time of offering the programme (39%), work commitments (36%) and having a centre/clinic close to the house (28%). Factors that may act as facilitators and rated as 'extremely helpful' were: research that shows that JP works (26%) and having the centre/clinic close to the house (25%). An online format for JP was the most preferred option (54%). Half (46%) preferred a timeframe of 1 hour, three times per week and 44% preferred a 2-hour programme, for three times per week.

Conclusions: Awareness of the potential benefits of JP, and prior experience with JP programme were very low. Common potentially modifiable patient-reported barriers to participate in future JP interventions, included: cost, work commitments, distance from home to clinic and times that the intervention were provided. These barriers might be addressed with free and accessible forms of delivery of JP, which may lead to better uptake and participation in JP programmes.

Keywords: musculoskeletal disorders; rehabilitation medicine; rheumatology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Individuals who took part into joint protection (n=10) where asked to what extent did the joint protection (JP) affect stiffness, pain, grip strength, hand function and swelling. Only 2 out of 10 individuals that participated in JP experienced slightly worse to much worse outcomes.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Factors perceived either as facilitators or barriers that may affect participation in a joint protection programme.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Participants were asked to rate the following components of joint protection from ‘extremely useful’ to ‘extremely useless’.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Individuals were asked how often they used the following modalities to manage their symptoms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Dibonaventura Mdacosta, Gupta S, McDonald M, et al. . Evaluating the health and economic impact of osteoarthritis pain in the workforce: results from the National health and wellness survey. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2011;12:83. 10.1186/1471-2474-12-83 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dahaghin S, Bierma-Zeinstra SMA, Ginai AZ, et al. . Prevalence and pattern of radiographic hand osteoarthritis and association with pain and disability (the Rotterdam study). Ann Rheum Dis 2005;64:682–7. 10.1136/ard.2004.023564 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stoffer-Marx MA, Klinger M, Luschin S, et al. . Functional consultation and exercises improve grip strength in osteoarthritis of the hand - a randomised controlled trial. Arthritis Res Ther 2018;20:253. 10.1186/s13075-018-1747-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ceceli E, Gül S, Borman P, et al. . Hand function in female patients with hand osteoarthritis: relation with radiological progression. Hand 2012;7:335–40. 10.1007/s11552-012-9434-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kloppenburg M, Kroon FP, Blanco FJ. Update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of hand osteoarthritis. Ann Rheum Dis 2018;2019:16. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources