2009 Grant Awards

The posters and papers listed below each grant arise from work facilitated through the grant funding.

Facilitating Patient Utilization of Multidisciplinary Care in Inflammatory Arthritis?

Principal Investigator: Pope, J
Co-investigator: Nielson, W.

Project Summary

Facilitating Patient Utilization of Multidisciplinary Care in Inflammatory Arthritis Objective Multidisciplinary self-management programs are important in inflammatory arthritis as adjunctive treatment. Patients often have excuses as to why they do not attend these programs. The purpose of this study was to determine if an intervention of televised testimonials from rheumatologists and allied health professionals increases attendance at a multidisciplinary education day for rheumatology patients seen in a large university hospital clinic.

There was a 20% increase in attendees at the multidisciplinary education days for patients who saw the televised testimonials. 63 patients who viewed the testimonials (2.17% of 2908) attended the education day compared to 39 who did not receive the intervention (1.80% of 2168); however the increase was not statistically significant (p=0.36).

Poster Presentations

Presented at the 2013 Canadian Rheumatology Association meeting.

• A Randomized Controlled Trial of Using Televised Testimonials to Increase Attendance of a Multi-Disciplinary Education Day Program in a Large Rheumatology Clinic  (PDF)

Published Literature

• Tingey P, Khanafer M, Singh K, Thompson A, Le Riche N, Barra L, Haig S, Rohekar G, Rohekar S, Nielson W, Pope JE. Social persuasion in rheumatology: a randomized trial of testimonials on television in the rheumatology clinic waiting room to increase attendance for multidisciplinary education, Rheumatol Int. (2014)