Overall wellness was most important for patients managing psoriatic arthritis; however, the biggest challenges to adopting wellness behavior were high costs and lack of energy, said Kelly Gavigan, MPH, during her research presentation at ACR Convergence on November 12.

Gavigan is the director of the data management and analytics division at Global Healthy Living Foundation in Nyack, New York.

“Patients diagnosed with PsA confront decisions about how to optimize treatment of their chronic disease including patient physician interaction and modifying their own lifestyle choices that may impact their disease outcomes,” Gavigan said. “The objective of this study was to examine PsA patients' views and attitudes of managing their disease using a guided online wellness program to address lifestyle behaviors such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management.”

To get a better understanding of the top motivators for adopting wellness behaviors, Gavigan and colleagues used data collected from 186 patients in the U.S. ArthritisPower registry via a cross-sectional online survey. Most participants were women (86.0%), white (89.8%), and mean age was 56.9 years. At the time of survey, all participants had a mild and/or moderate case of PsA for at least 10 years.

Was wellness an important consideration in the management of PsA? “Without a doubt,” said Gavigan. “More than three-fourths (76.9%) of patients reported that wellness is very important for management of their PsA.” Further breaking down the meaning of wellness—80.1% of patients considered sleep an important aspect of wellness and 67.7% considered nutrition as important. The survey, however, revealed that only 10.8% of patients participated in a structured wellness program.

The top reason for participating in a wellness program was to feel better, with more than 37% of the patients agreeing to the point on the survey. Diagnosis of the disease also led more patients (77.4%) to think about wellness now more than before their PsA diagnosis.

While 27.4% of the patients preferred to participate in a wellness program by interacting with an online trained professional, followed by an online course; 21.5% of the patients preferred to either attend an in-person class or have an in-person consultation and coaching from a trained professional.

Another key part of studying the survey results was to investigate the barriers to participating in an online wellness program, Gavigan noted. While roughly 10% of the survey participants said there were no barriers, nearly half of the participants (50.5%) cited costs as their biggest hurdle to opting for an online program, followed by 46.8% of the survey participants saying they didn’t have the energy to make changes to their routine.

Other barriers to wellness changes included not knowing what changes to make, lack of time to make changes, lack of willingness to make changes, not being in the right environment to make changes, and not believing that any lifestyle behaviors affect PsA.

The survey data shed light on patients' attitudes and views about online wellness programs, however “further studies are needed to determine how e-coaching wellness platforms may improve and sustain lifestyle changes in PsA patients,” Gavigan said.

—Priyam Vora

Reference:
Gavigan K. Poster 0212. Managing psoriatic arthritis: patients’ views and attitudes to using an online wellness program. Presented at: American College of Rheumatology Convergence. November 12, 2022.