Patient organisations and online communities, such as the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) and HealthUnlocked (HU), are one source of possible recruitment of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for research studies. However it is not known whether people from these groups represent all people with RA. This study will describe the NRAS members and HU NRAS community members and visitors with RA and compare them to people with RA identified from GP medical electronic records. This study will help determine whether NRAS and HU are representative sources of people with RA for future studies.
The objective of this study is to determine the representativeness of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) members and HealthUnlocked (HU) community members and visitors. The study population will come from two sources: NRAS members as of 1st January 2015, a survey of HU NRAS community members and visitors to the site, and previous studies that have used NRAS as a source of participants. The comparison group will be people with RA (as of 1st January 2015) identified from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. For each dataset the number of participants and their characteristics where available (age, gender, region of the UK, types of medication, time since diagnosis, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and employment status) will be tabulated and compared using appropriate statistical tests.
Rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis
William Dixon - Chief Investigator - University of Manchester
Ruth Costello - Corresponding Applicant - University of Manchester
Benjamin Brown - Collaborator - University of Manchester
John McBeth - Collaborator - University of Manchester
Patient Level Index of Multiple Deprivation;Practice Level Index of Multiple Deprivation