Background/Purpose: Few studies have described how patient, disease-specific, and provider factors are associated with medication information source use among arthritis patients. We address this research gap by describing characteristics associated with arthritis patients’ use of 15 medication information sources.

Methods: Adult osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis patients completed an online cross-sectional survey. Patients (n=328) self-reported sociodemographic (i.e., age, gender, race/ethnicity, education level, marital status), clinical (i.e., year of diagnosis, age at diagnosis, arthritis type, current number of arthritis medicines taken, medication adherence, arthritis severity, comorbidities), and sociobehavioral (satisfaction with doctor-provided medication support, medication self-efficacy, and arthritis medication-taking concerns) characteristics. Patients were asked how much medicine information they sought and/or were given from fifteen different information sources (e.g., doctor, Internet, spouse/partner, medicine package inserts) when they are prescribed a new arthritis medicine. Patients’ responses (range:   1= “none” to 4= “a lot”) were averaged and higher mean scores corresponded to greater medication information source use. Correlations were inspected and covariates significant at the p≤0.05 level were subsequently examined using multivariable linear regression analyses to investigate whether sociodemographic, clinical, and sociobehavioral factors were associated with medication source use.

Results: On average, patients were 56 years old (±13; range 19–85) and were taking 2.5 arthritis medications. Most patients were female (79%) and white (80%); the median arthritis duration was 11 years. In multivariate analysis, the following independent variables remained significantly positively associated with arthritis medication information source use:  always adherent (b = .13, p =.024), more medications taken ((b = .09, p <.0001), more medicine-taking concerns (b = .11, p =.001), more satisfaction with doctor medication support (b = .21, <.007), and Black race (b= .25, =.002).

Conclusion: Information source use varied with patient, clinical, and sociobehavioral factors. These findings have implications for public health efforts related to medication education for arthritis patients.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/associations-between-arthritis-patient-disease-specific-and-provider-characteristics-and-medication-information-source-use/