[Advantages of cooperation with self-help organisations for out-patient physicians]

Self-help groups and organisations are important contributors to the provision of rheumatological care. No systematic studies exist thus far on the cooperation between professional care providers and the German Rheumatism League, the most significant patient organisation for rheumatoid patients.

To gain information about the extent of the co-operation between rheumatologists and the German Rheumatism League and to estimate the benefits of the co-operation, a survey was conducted among German rheumatologists in the out-patient sector (n = 787).

The response rate was 40.7%. As many as 98.7% of the rheumatologists were informed about self-help initiatives, with 78.1% receiving this information from their own patients. Regular or frequent co-operation with self-help initiatives was reported by 46%. Among the physicians with experience in co-operation, 84.1% wished more contact with self-help initiatives, compared with only 61.9% of non-experienced physicians. The benefit of the activities of the Rheumatism League was highly appreciated: the long-term training of functional capacity was evaluated as helpful by 73.4%; the training for coping with pain by 62.2%; the occupational therapy groups by 60.6%; the patient-education groups by 61.6%; and the self-help groups by 56.3%. The benefit of co-operation was appreciated more by rheumatologists experienced in co-operation than by rheumatologist without specific experience: on a rating scale from 1 (little benefit) to 6 (high benefit) the former group scored an average of 3.7, the latter an average of 2.7.

In spite of the relatively low response rate (40.7%), the results cover a relevant part of rheumatologists in the out-patient sector. The more experience physicians have with co-operation, the higher they estimate the benefits of co-operation with the Rheumatism League. This underlines the necessity of technical information about self-help initiatives and the promotion of contacts and co-operation in the rheumatological out-patient sector.