Patient-reported outcomes are at the core of assessing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment response with patient assessments of global health or disease activity, pain, and physical function, Shilpa Venkatachalam, PhD, stressed during her presentation at the ACR Convergence on November 12.

Dr Venkatachalam is director of Patient-Centered Research Operations and Ethical Oversight at the Global Healthy Living Foundation in New York.

The research sought to understand the utility of patient-reported outcome data captured between visits in relation to traditional, physician-derived measures. “We found that patient-reported outcomes are useful for tracking RA disease activity over time outside of the clinic setting for patients initiating new treatments, even in the absence of clinician-derived measures,” Dr Venkatachalam explained.

Patients with RA (N=240) with moderate to high disease activity, being treated with either upadacitinib or adalimumab, participated in the study between March 2021 and October 2022. The patients then provided data through the ArthritisPower registry smartphone app over 12 weeks. The data included disease activity measures as well as symptom measures from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS).

Patients returned for a follow-up clinical visit at approximately 3-4 months, at which baseline clinical data including clinical disease activity index (CDAI), years since RA diagnosis, prior medications, and follow-up CDAI were added to the earlier obtained information.

“Mean CDAI improved 14.4 units for patients who stayed on the medication,” observed Dr Venkatachalam and colleagues. “Correlations between follow-up CDAI and follow-up patient-reported outcomes ranged from 0.38 – 0.56, the strongest of which were for Patient Global Assessment NRS (R=0.56) and Pain NRS (R=0.47).”

Patient-reported outcomes can provide important perspectives—"perspectives that are not captured in clinical settings—and this data can be used in providing better insights in informed decision making,” Dr Venkatachalam said.

Reference:
Venkatachalam S. 0380: Use of digital health tools to evaluate change in clinical and patient-reported outcomes among patients with rheumatoid arthritis initiating treatment with a JAKi or TNFi. Presented at: American College of Rheumatology Convergence. November 12, 2023. San Diego.