Session Information
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2015
Title: Health Services Research Poster I: Diagnosis, Management and Treatment Strategies
Session Type: ACR Poster Session A
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose:
Remission of disease is the primary goal in chronic inflammatory arthritis, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. Traditional disease-modifying drugs like methotrexate and anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti TNF) therapy are increasingly prescribed. General practitioners (GP) have to be faced with these treatments. The aim of the study is to explore GPs’ perceptions of using these treatments in regular day-to-day practice.
Methods:
Semi structured interviews conducted with 14 GPs following patients under methotrexate and anti-TNF therapy, were analysed independently by researchers using inductive thematic analysis.
Results:
Four themes were identified: role of the GP in care delivery to patients under these treatments; their experiences and difficulties with these treatments; their perception of therapy education programmes; improving care delivery practices. The GP’s role revolves around repeat prescription of methotrexate and managing for comorbidities, such as vaccination. In regular day-to-day practice, GPs note good tolerance and efficacy with these treatments. However, the increased risk of infection remains a top-of-mind concern and represents a hindrance to the use of these treatments. The most predominant difficulties are drug interactions and how to handle stopping anti-TNF therapy during bacterial infection, especially for GPs in rural area where there is limited access to specialist care. These GPs also report limited access to therapy education programmes. All the GPs voiced the need for a support tool to help them manage these therapies in routine practice.
Conclusion:
Methotrexate and anti-TNF therapies bring specific management issues that warrant tight cooperation between GPs and specialists. This study finds that it seem essential to facilitate dedicated training for GPs and to deploy a support tool.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Soubrier M, Mathieu S, Berthet E. General Practitioners’ Perceptions of Methotrexate and Anti-TNF Therapies: A Qualitative Study [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/general-practitioners-perceptions-of-methotrexate-and-anti-tnf-therapies-a-qualitative-study/. Accessed .« Back to 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/general-practitioners-perceptions-of-methotrexate-and-anti-tnf-therapies-a-qualitative-study/