Our team did three literature reviews for our scoping review. We wanted to see how researchers in the articles we found described issues connected to differences in care and treatment. We picked research articles published between 1990 and 2023. We looked at the ways researchers described patients in Canadian randomized controlled trials (the most influential type of research). These are the types of arthritis we looked at.

1. Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA)
2. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)
3. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)

We searched various databases for articles.

What Were the Key Findings?

The literature reviews showed us that in research studies in Canada, we don’t see many details about what the participants are like. These details are lacking particularly in randomized controlled trials on JIA, RA, and SLE. Health inequities make a difference to care results. We did not see enough details in the studies we found about why different groups might have different results.

In most of these studies, we found only gender, sex, and age listed.

In the 3 literature reviews, we found out:

1. Studies published on JIA: (5 studies included).

We saw sex and age reported in all studies. Race, social and economic status, education, and relationships were each reported once in three studies.

2. Studies published on RA: (42 studies included)

We saw sex and age reported in 41 studies. Other determinants reported were race, education, social and economic status, and occupation.

3. Studies published on SLE: (6 studies included)

We saw sex and age reported in all studies. We also noted: race, social capital, places people live, social and economic status, occupation, and education.

The trials that we found from Canada for JIA, RA, and SLE are behind in reporting factors that determine health. There is not enough representation in participants of trials. We see a need for a new way to capture more factors leading to health unfairness in JIA, RA, and SLE patient populations.

Infographics

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