Donate Now
  • Research Completed
How Well Are We Treating Early Rheumatoid Arthritis in Canada?
View in English
Voir en francais
RA-Early-Care

Scientific Study Title:

Testing of System-Level Performance Measures for Inflammatory Arthritis

Start Date: 

  • 2015

End Date:

  • 2022

Research Category

Tags

Claire Barber
Research Scientist, Rheumatology, MD, PhD, FRCPC

Ready to Participate?

Life-changing arthritis research is only possible with your help!

Participate Now

Why do this research?

Reason For Research

The Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC) stresses the importance of a continuum of care, from early diagnosis to ongoing treatment in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) care. The AAC developed a way to test the success of care models, focusing on access to care and early treatment. This uses a set of quality measures. The goal was to check if the healthcare system is doing a good job in consistently providing care for people with early rheumatoid arthritis, making sure that they get the necessary treatments quickly.

Methodology

Execution of Research

We looked at patients who were part of the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort (CATCH) from 2007 to 2015. We assessed 3 quality measures:

1. How regularly patients were followed up each year,
2. The use of medications known to slow down the disease’s progression, and
3. How quickly these medications were started after diagnosis.

Findings & Next Steps

The study included 1,763 patients, mostly middle-aged, mostly female, and largely white. The study found that:

• At first, all patients were seen yearly, but over eight years, this rate slightly dropped to 91%.
• About 42% of patients did not have any breaks in their care longer than 12 months, and 64% had no breaks longer than 14 months.
• A high percentage of patients were treated with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which help to slow the disease’s progression. This rate slightly decreased from 95% to 87% over the study period.
• Most patients started taking DMARDs very quickly after their diagnosis, usually within a day. This showed that treatments were started quickly.

This study consists of 4 sub-projects dedicated to achieving our overall goals. Click below for more information about each sub-project:

Related Publications

  • Barber CEH, Schieir O, Lacaille D, Marshall DA, Barnabe C, Hazlewood G, Thorne JC. Ahluwalia V, Bartlett SJ, Boire G, Haraoui B, Hitchon C, Keystone E, Tin D, Pope JE, Denning L, Bykerk VP, Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort Investigators (2018). High Adherence to System-Level Performance Measures for Rheumatoid Arthritis in a National Early Arthritis Cohort Over Eight Years. Arthritis care & research, 70(6), 842–850. https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.23439

Related Research

New Model of At-Home Follow-Up Care_PLS

A New Model of At-Home Follow-Up Care for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Read More
Research-Stream-AI-Study_425x296

Using Artificial Intelligence to Streamline Research on Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatments

Read More
2026-Studies-to-Watch-Decision-Aid

Evaluating a Decision Aid for Tapering Biologic Medications in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Read More
VIVA-Study-PLS-image

Virtual Intervention for Vertebral frActure (VIVA): A rehab program for better recovery after spine fractures

Read More
Other-Types-of-Arthritis-10.0-1

Improving quality of arthritis care for Indigenous populations

Read More
arc_placeholder_new

Development of a new life expectancy and quality of life prediction model for Canadians

Read More