Background/Purpose: Many effective treatments are available for knee osteoarthritis (OA), however comparative effectiveness research (CER) of various treatments to each other is limited. One of the key challenges to conducting knee OA trials is the choice of primary trial outcome, that is sensitive to change and is relevant to patients as the key stakeholders. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional study to examine the outcomes most relevant to patients with knee OA in a sample that included racial/Ethnic minorities.

Methods: We enrolled consecutive patients with a clinical diagnosis of knee OA at a tertiary medical center clinic, oversampling for African Americans with knee OA, during regular clinic visit. Participants ranked various knee OA outcomes in response to the question: “How important is the assessment of the following outcomes in a study of people with knee osteoarthritis?”

Results: In a pilot study of 58 people with knee OA (mean age, 57 years; 72% female; 69% White) at regular clinic visits, the respondents ranked the following outcomes as extremely, very or moderately important for this study: knee pain (95%); function (86%); sleep (87%); fatigue (92%); patient acceptable symptom state (89%); social participation (77%); anxiety/depression (86%). Only 37% of patients were satisfied or very satisfied with current knee OA treatment.

Conclusion: This patient-focused study identified that a large group of patients were unsatisfied with current knee OA treatments. The chosen study outcomes reflect a range of components and outcomes important to patients and other key stakeholders. Identification of patient-relevant and patient-important study outcomes will make outcome selection practical for a pragmatic clinical trial.

ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/patient-preferences-for-outcome-measures-for-a-pragmatic-knee-osteoarthritis-oa-clinical-trial-results-of-a-cross-sectional-patient-survey-that-included-racial-ethnic-minorities/