Health Coaching Intervention Improved Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms

A poster presentation at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting found that implementing a digital health coaching program helped to improve healthy behaviors and reduce flare ups among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Uma K Srivastava, MD, of Pack Health, and colleagues examined the impact of a telephone-based behavioral modification intervention that paired RA patients with a nonclinical health coach.

“Despite considerable advancements in pharmacotherapy treatments, millions of people still suffer with RA,” Dr Srivastava and colleagues wrote. “This puts management in the hands of the patients, requiring lifestyle changes to improve symptoms associated with RA.”

The researcher matched 127 RA patients with health coaches for a 12-week program. The program consisted of once a week telephone calls from health coaches to survey patients about their behavior and disease. The researchers recorded Patient Activity Scale-II scores to track symptom severity throughout the study period.

Study results showed that the program improved health behaviors. Notably, BMI decreased by 0.54, weekly physical activity increased by 73%, sleep hours increased by 0.4 hours per night, and alchol and tobacco consumption decreased significantly.

The researchers also found that these behavior improvements seemed to also impact symptom severity, with flare up frequency decreased by 48%. Dr Srivastava and colleagues noted that these findings suggest “that improvement of healthy behaviors and the reduction of stressors were associated.”

“The results of the study indicate that behavior modification would improve healthy behaviors and decrease RA symptoms,” the researchers concluded. “Future studies should examine the impact of coaching in various segments of RA patients such as underserved, those with multiple comorbidities and those newly diagnosed versus patients living with RA for multiple years.”

—David Costill