Study Finds Doctors Often Overlook Key RA Symptoms

Research

Autoimmune, Rheumatoid Arthritis

Study Finds Doctors Often Overlook Key RA Symptoms

PUBLISHED

January 6, 2025

Evaluation Of Disease Activity In Patients Diagnosed With Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA): How Often And To What Detail Are Assessments Documented?

Authors: Manuel Prado, Founder & CEO of RealHealthData, and Amy Smalarz, Founder & CEO of Strategic Market Insight

Affiliations: RealHealthData (Santa Cruz, CA, USA), which was acquired by Amplity in 2020, and Strategic Market Insight, Acton, MA, USA

Introduction

This study leveraged the RealHealthData database (now known as AnswerY™), composed of HIPAA-compliant transcribed physician notes, to examine how often disease activity + damage in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was documented by physicians during office visits.

Methods

300 records for RA patients were extracted from the RealHealthData database (now known as AnswerY)
Patients were at least 18 years of age, were diagnosed with RA, and had an office visit with at least one physician in the past 12 months
Atlas.ti + Excel were used to analyze the records and assess how frequently physicians documented the recommended evaluations of disease activity during office visits

Results

92% of physicians documented the presence of actively inflamed joints + evidence of disease progression for their patients

28% and 18% of doctors documented duration of morning stiffness + fatigue, respectively; 11% documented the degree of joint pain via a visual analog scale (VAS)

Physicians rarely documented their own global assessment of disease activity (5%) or the patient’s global assessment of disease activity

Conclusions

While many physicians documented the number of tender and swollen joints, loss of motion, or deformity, most physicians did not document patient-reported symptoms that are critical to disease monitoring
Our results demonstrate there is room for improvement when it comes to documenting patient-reported outcomes in RA