ArticleBMC rheumatology2020
Real-world questions and concerns about disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs): a retrospective analysis of questions to a medicine call center.
Article in BMC rheumatology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Patient experiences and perspectives of DMARD monitoring in Australians with long-disease-duration rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.BMC rheumatology · 2025Article
- Talking About Barriers to Disease-Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drugs: Content Analysis of Audio-Recorded Routine Clinical Visits of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.Patient preference and adherence · 2025Article
- New bitongling regulates gut microbiota to predict angiogenesis in rheumatoid arthritis via the gut-joint axis: a deep neural network approach.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Artemisia herba-alba: antioxidant capacity and efficacy in preventing chronic arthritis in vivo.Inflammopharmacology · 2024Article
- The temporal association between adverse drug reactions and antirheumatic drugs utilisation in Western Australia: a retrospective study from real-world data (1995-2015).Rheumatology international · 2024Article
- Anxiety levels before biologic initiation and changes with treatment in patients with psoriatic arthritis: HUR-BIO biologic registry results.Clinical rheumatology · 2022Article
- Patient-based benefit-risk assessment of medicines: development, refinement, and validation of a content search strategy to retrieve relevant studies.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2022Article
- Dynamics of Patient-Based Benefit-Risk Assessment of Medicines in Chronic Diseases: A Systematic Review.Patient preference and adherence · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDisease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) have transformed the treatment of numerous autoimmune and inflammatory diseases but their perceived risk of harm may be a barrier to use.
methodsIn a retrospective mixed-methods study, we analysed conventional (c) and biologic (b) DMARDs-related calls and compared them with rest of calls (ROC) from consumers to an Australian national medicine call center operated by clinical pharmacists from September 2002 to June 2010. This includes the period where bDMARDs became available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the government-subsidized prescription medicines formulary. We compared caller and patient demographics, enquiry types and motivation to information-seek for both cDMARDs and bDMARDs with ROC, using a t-test for continuous data and a chi-square test for categorical data. We explored call narratives to identify common themes.
resultsThere were 1547 calls involving at least one DMARD. The top three cDMARD enquiry types were side effects (27.2%), interactions (21.9%), and risk versus benefit (11.7%). For bDMARDs, the most common queries involved availability and subsidized access (18%), mechanism and profile (15.8%), and side effects (15.1%). The main consumer motivations to information-seek were largely independent of medicines type and included: inadequate information (44%), wanting a second opinion (23.6%), concern about a worrying symptom (18.8%), conflicting information (6.9%), or information overload (2.3%). Question themes common to conventional and biological DMARDs were caller overemphasis on medication risk and the need for reassurance. Callers seeking information about bDMARDs generally overestimated effectiveness and focused their attention on availability, cost, storage, and medicine handling.
conclusionConsumers have considerable uncertainty regarding DMARDs and may overemphasise risk. Patients cautiously assess the benefits and risks of their DMARDs but when new treatments emerge, they tend to overestimate their effectiveness.
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