Which Factors Influence Self-Efficacy in Patients with Chronic Inflammatory Polyarthritis?

OBJECTIVES: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) or unspecified polyarthritis (UA) deal with several symptoms such as joint stiffness, pain, physical limitations and fatigue. Self-efficacy is about patients' beliefs and abilities to handle the symptoms and implications of having arthritis. Patients' self-efficacy is also a phenomenon that nurses may affect through patient education. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the factors that predict self-efficacy in patients with chronic inflammatory polyarthritis.

METHODS: The participants (n = 132) were recruited from St Olavs University Hospital in central Norway from 2008 to 2010, and consisted of adult patients with RA, PsA or UA. We performed secondary analyses on data collected in a randomized controlled trial studying the long-term effects of nurse-led patient education. We carried out bivariate and multivariate linear regression analyses. The predictor variables consisted of baseline data on demographics, disease characteristics (diagnosis, disease duration, disease activity, use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, pain and tiredness) and psychological variables (well-being, psychological distress and patient activation). The dependent variables were self-efficacy over other symptoms and self-efficacy over for pain after one year.

RESULTS: The analyses showed that female gender and patient activation predicted higher self-efficacy over other symptoms, whereas female gender and better well-being predicted higher self-efficacy over pain.

CONCLUSION: To strengthen arthritis patients' self-efficacy, nurses need to focus on patients' well-being and activation. Nurses also need to be aware of possible gender differences regarding patients' self-efficacy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.