Group therapies for rheumatoid arthritis: A controlled study of two approaches

✍ Scribed by Gordon D. Strauss; Jane Sinden Spiegel; Marcia Daniels; Timothy Spiegel; John Landsverk; Peter Roy-Byrne; Carole Edelstein; Johanna Ehlhardt; Roberta Falke; Lee Hindin; Les Zackler

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 582 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780291004

✦ Synopsis

An important unanswered question about rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is how the patient's psychological or emotional state relates to disease activity and functional status. No controlled studies of psychotherapeutic interventions in RA have been reported. To test the hypothesis that a psychosocial intervention would lead to improvement in functional status or disease activity, 57 RA patients were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups, which received: 1) conventional group psychotherapy; 2) group assertionhelaxation training; or 3) no treatment (control group). Patient and physician questionnaires collected at baseline, immediately after the interventions, and 12 months after baseline provided outcome data on functional status, social and psychological adaptation, psychological symptoms, and disease activity. There were few outcome measures for which either treatment resulted in significantly higher scores _ _ _ _ _