Background Collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) is an important aspect of modern treatment strategies. Electronic capture in waiting areas by touch screens is part of routine care in the Danish DANBIO registry¹. It is not known whether this data collection can be replaced with electronic data entry from home.

Objectives To test the feasibility of online patient recruitment via touch screens and to investigate if electronic reporting of PROs from home (ELECTOR IT-platform) is comparable to reporting completed at the hospital among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or axial spondyloarthritis (AS).

Methods Patients with RA or AS were recruited via touch screens and randomized to one of two groups by a pre-computed list generated through DANBIO; the first group completing the PROs at home and then at the hospital-site, and vice versa for the second group. All patients completed the Health Assessment Questionnaires (HAQ), the Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) for fatigue, pain and global health and the annual visit questions. Furthermore, AS patients completed the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) and the BAS Function Index (BASFI). Pearson's Chi-square test, independent samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were calculated. Smallest detectable differences (SDDs), 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated.

Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT02818478.

Results A total of 952 patients received invitation, 45% accepted, 127 patients were contacted by phone, and 56 (44%) gave consent to participate. 22 patients with RA and 20 patients with AS completed the trial.

All differences between scores from home vs hospital were smaller than SDD, and all were non-significant (p<0.05), except for BASFI and BASDAI item 5. ICC ranged from 0.947–0.990 (p<0.00001). Annual visit questions showed 96% concordance between the two methods. 50% of the patients preferred from home data entry over hospital and 10% vice versa.

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Conclusions Recruitment of patients for a randomized trial via touch screens was feasible. PROs collected from patients' own devices at home generated results comparable to results obtained from the existing touch-screen solution and were preferred by the patients.

References

1. Schefte et al. (2010).

References

Disclosure of Interest A. E. Secher: None declared, B. Glintborg Grant/research support from: AbbVie, H. Gudbergsen Speakers bureau: MSD and Pfizer, N. Krogh: None declared, D. Jensen: None declared, I. Sørensen: None declared, R. Christensen: None declared, M. Skougaard: None declared, M. Hetland Grant/research support from: AbbVie, BMS, MSD, Pfizer, UCB, Biogen, Orion