Co-designing the inflammatory arthritis self-management (aiM) intervention.

Knuth, Alexa

Abstract

Self-management is an integral part of care for people living with inflammatory arthritis. The benefits of self-management interventions for people living with long-term conditions are well established. To date, most of the inflammatory arthritis self-management interventions have targeted only rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore, there is a need for a self-management intervention that reaches beyond just people living with rheumatoid arthritis. The overarching aim of this project was to co-design a self-management intervention for people across the inflammatory arthritis spectrum, based on the needs and preferences of co-designers (i.e. both people living with IA and healthcare professionals), as well as on the scientific literature. This project commenced with a mixed-method systematic review exploring the effectiveness and acceptability of existing inflammatory arthritis self-management interventions. Then, a two-phase, sequential multi-methods approach was employed. The first phase involved five asynchronous co-design workshops, guided by the Intervention Mapping Framework (Bartholomew et al. 2016). The second phase then explored participants' experience in participating in co-design research, including the barriers and facilitators to co-design. The mixed-method systematic review demonstrated that inflammatory arthritis self-management interventions produced a clinically meaningful reduction in fatigue and pain in people living with inflammatory arthritis. There was also some data to suggest that inflammatory arthritis self-management interventions have a beneficial effect on self-efficacy; knowledge; communication; health- related quality of life; and engagement with self-management behaviours. Additionally, the review found that inflammatory arthritis self-management interventions are generally acceptable to people living with inflammatory arthritis and healthcare professionals. Workshop findings provided important insight into the health problems and self-management needs of people living with inflammatory arthritis. The workshops also helped to identify the key content and features of the developed self-management intervention - i.e. the inflAmmatory arthrItis self-Management (aiM) intervention. Participants reported having an overall positive experience participating in the workshops, which provided them with an opportunity to meet others living with IA. The use of asynchronous workshops was felt to contribute to the participants' high attendance rate and the study's low attrition, despite IT-issues that were reported as a barrier to the participants' ability to fully participate in the workshops. This project developed a novel self-management intervention, which aims to improve the health status of people living with inflammatory arthritis through increased engagement with self-management strategies. The aiM intervention is based on the needs and preferences of the co-designers, and is grounded in theory and evidence. The findings have also provided new knowledge regarding the health problems related to people living with inflammatory arthritis, their self-management needs, and mechanisms that facilitate and inhibit co-design processes in an asynchronous remote context. Moving forward, it is recommended that the aiM intervention be tested for its feasibility and acceptability.

Citation

KNUTH, A. 2023. Co-designing the inflammatory arthritis self-management (aiM) intervention. Robert Gordon University, DPT thesis. Hosted on OpenAIR [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2071688

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 5, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 5, 2023
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2071688
• Keywords: Inflammatory arthritis; Self-management of healthcare; Chronic conditions; Healthcare interventions
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2071688
• Award Date: Feb 28, 2023