Outpatient educational program for rheumatoid arthritis patients

A patient-education program was designed to meet the expressed needs of clinic rheumatoid arthritis patients. This program consisted of six educational seminars involving various health professionals. A quasi-experimental control group design was employed to evaluate the patients' cognitive and behavioral responses to this program. Responses were assessed through the administration of pretests, posttests, and three-month follow-up tests to treatment and control groups. The treatment group increased its cognitive score 22.5% from initial pretest to long-term follow-up, whereas the control group improved only 5.1% on these questions. The treatment group improved its behavioral score between the administration of the pretest and the posttest and maintained this improvement on the long-term follow-up. Although the control group initially scored somewhat higher on the behavioral measures, it reported a decrease in the performance of self-care activities on the posttest and follow-up.