Diverse Treatment Goals in Psoriatic Arthritis: Insights From Participants in the PARC Cohort

The aim of this study was to examine patient-reported treatment goals among individuals with psoriatic arthritis.

Participants in the Psoriatic Arthritis Research Consortium completed standardized assessments, including patient-reported outcome (PROs) instruments, between 2017 and 2020. Additionally, participants were asked two open-ended questions at enrollment or therapy initiation to identify patients' top improvement priority and their treatment impact goals, respectively: "If you could improve one thing about your disease, what would it be?" and "What would an effective treatment change for you?" We categorized each response into a theme. The themes were matched to constructs measured by PRO items (ie, pain, fatigue, skin, etc). We describe themes and scores from matched PRO items.

Assessments were completed by 193 participants. Decreasing pain (56%) and improving skin (12%) were the most common improvement priorities. Impact goals were more diverse and included decreasing pain (24%), general improvement in life (18%), and the ability to be more active (15%), participate in recreational activities (9%), function at work (11%), and exercise (5%). Of note, responses were often matched to more than one PRO item or instrument. The scores for PRO items that matched the patient's improvement priority or the impact goal were higher than scores for the remainder of the population (ie, fatigue item scores were higher among individuals identifying fatigue as their improvement priority).

The heterogeneity of treatment goals underscores the importance of eliciting patient treatment goals to guide personalized management. Specific items within PROs may be helpful in identifying and following patient-specific treatment goals.