The purpose of this project is to investigate the relationship between telephone counseling that is designed to enhance an arthritis patient's participation in medical care and health status improvement.
The specific aims of the project are to: 1) develop a telephone counseling model that will increase patient involvement with their medical care, 2) carry out a randomized, controlled, clinical trial of the intervention, 3) estimate the amount of pain, physical disability, psychological disability, medical care usage, and medication usage that is changed by the intervention, 4) determine the duration of the intervention needed for a positive outcome, 5) estimate the effectiveness of the 12 months after the end of the intervention, 6) estimate the level of association between the amount of patient involvement in care, social support, and arthritis health status, and, 7) estimate the effectiveness of the intervention on specific subgroups of patients. A total of 525 rheumatoid and osteoarthritis patients from the Alabama community will participate over the 5-year period of the project. Each patient will be randomly assigned to a Telephone Counseling Group or to a Control (Placebo or Usual care) group and followed for 21 months. The study will provide important findings on the level of short-term and long-term effectiveness of telephone counseling in comparison to a placebo, the underlying causes for its effectiveness, its effects on a diverse group of arthritis patients, and its optimal duration. The results of the study will help arthritis care providers determine the utility of telephone counseling for their patients.
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