Essentially the management of a chronic, painful, and disabling condition such as arthritis is the responsibility of the individual. However, community education is one method nurses use to assist these people. 'ne Arthritis Self-Management Course (ASMC), a six week lay-lead, standardized educational pro ram has been empirically validated with over 2500 people during an 11 year period. It is offered throughout the United States, albeit primarily in metropolitan areas, under the sponsorship 1;f the Arthritis Foundation. The program has been shown to help people with arthritis learn certain skills that enable them to lessen their pain, improve their psychological status, and increase their confidence in all aspects of disease management. While the program has been shown to be very effective in small groups with face-to-face instructor-participant interaction, it has not reached large numbers of people with arthritis especially those living in rural areas. Additional ways need. to be found to deliver this important program. lb.is preliminary study will use a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test control group design to evaluate the effectiveness of Che ASMC when delivered by interactive television rather than through the standard small group approach now used by the Arthritis Foundation.
Specific aims are as follows: (1) The program materials and teaching techniques will be adapted for television broadcast. (2) The ASMC will be provided to three groups: a control group receiving ASMC in the standard face-to-face approach and two experimental groups taught by interactive television. The two experimental groups will be taught simultaneously with one group located in the television studio/classroom on the Wichita State University campus and the second group located off campus. The second experimental group will be divided in sections with participants located at four different high schools in Wichita. (3) The effectiveness of ASMC will be evaluated by comparing outcomes between and among groups at the end of the program and at 4, 8 and 12 months follow-up. Outcome measures are self-efficacy, health status (i.e. pain, functional disability, depression), self-care activities (i.e. exercise, relaxation), and knowledge. If teaching the ASMC via interactive television can produce results similar to those found using the present small group approach, the technology exits for serving large numbers of people with arthritis who are currently not being served.
