Patient Empowerment Among Adults With Arthritis: The Case for Emotional Support

Objective. This study aimed to identify differences in patient empowerment based on biopsychosocial patient-reported measures, the magnitude of those differences, and which measures best explain differences in patient empowerment. Methods. This was a cross-sectional observational study of 6918 adults with arthritis in the US. 1)ata were collected from March 2019 to March 2020 through the Arthritis Foundation Live Yes! INSIGHTS program. Patient empowerment, measured by the Health Care Empowerment Questionnaire, included 2 scales: Patient Information Seeking and Healthcare Interaction Results. Patient-reported outcomes were measured using the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-29 and PROMIS emotional support scale. ANOVA assessed differences between groups, and Spearman rank correlation assessed correlations between variables. Hierarchical regression analysis determined the contributions of sociodemo-graphic characteristics, arthritis type, and patent-reported health measures in explaining patient empowerment (alpha = 0.05). Results. Empowerment was lower among those who were male, older, less educated, or who had lower income, osteoarthritis, less emotional support, or better physical function, although the effect was small-to-negligible for most of these variables in the final regression models. Empowerment did not differ by race/ethnicity in unadjusted or adjusted analysis. In final regression models, emotional support contributed the most to explaining patient empowerment. Conclusion. Emotional support is important for patient empowerment. This suggests that programs that seek to improve patient empowerment should target and measure effects on emotional support.

Automated summary

This study aimed to identify differences in patient empowerment among arthritis patients and found that factors such as gender, age, education, income, arthritis type, emotional support, and physical function are associated with patient empowerment. Among these factors, emotional support has the most significant impact on patient empowerment.