Feasibility of Care for Osteoarthritis through Pharmacy Education and Referral

Name: COPER booklet plus pharmacist explanation plus referral to an arthritis educator The COPER booklet was specifically designed for this study. It contains information about osteoarthritis, explanation of common myths, and information about investigations, pain, other symptoms, optimising quality of life, movement and activity, diet and sleep, and seeking support. The COPER booklet integrates a biopsychosocial perspective and quotations from people who have knee osteoarthritis. A supporting website can be accessed using a link provided with the booklet. The website contains more detailed information, video content, links to research and other resources, and worksheets to aid development of an arthritis action plan. Community pharmacists will be trained (through a 60 minute training session) to provide consumers explanations that support the information provided in the COPER booklet and to refer consumers to Arthritis New Zealand. The training session will be led by a Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialist university researcher who led the development of the COPER booklet. The interactive training session will include explanation and discussion of the COPER booklet and supporting website and the underpinning research, discussion of 2018 The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Osteoarthritis Guideline recommendations regarding medications and supplementation, referral processes to arthritis educators, and the expected content and focus of arthritis educator interactions with consumers referred. Pharmacists will be able to refer to the supporting website that contains video examples of consumer explanations about the COPER booklet (in addition to the information designed for consumers). The pharmacist will provide a single face to face explanation (of approximately 5 to 15 minutes duration) to a consumer with knee osteoarthritis. This will orient the consumer to the booklet’s background, format and layout, briefly explain the content of the booklet, and answer any initial questions that the person has. The pharmacist will not be encouraged to recommend medications or supplementation as part of this explanation. The pharmacist will then provide the consumer a COPER booklet, and offer to refer the person to an arthritis educator employed by Arthritis New Zealand. The arthritis educator will telephone the consumer and answer questions; provide further explanation; identify impairments and priorities; develop individual goals; identify and discuss therapeutic options; and provide behaviour change support and coaching. It is anticipated the initial arthritis educator telephone call will take between 30 and 60 minutes. The arthritis educator will be able to contact the person multiple times as determined necessary by the person and educator. People who receive the COPER booklet and explanation will also be able to access the supporting website at their discretion for as long as they wish. Use of the booklet and website or adherence to the recommendations will not be monitored or assessed. Arthritis educator contact with consumers will be recorded (number of calls, duration of each call, content of calls, and consumer expressed interest in therapeutic options). Each pharmacist participant will provide up to 4 consumer explanations (up to 36 explanations will be delivered by all pharmacists across the feasibility study). A purposive selection of 12 consumers who receive COPER explanations will be invited to participate in a one-off semi-structured telephone-based qualitative interview of approximately 30 minutes duration. These interviews will discuss consumers’ perceptions of OA diagnosis in pharmacy, the explanation and booklet they received, the acceptability of receiving this information in a community pharmacy, and the arthritis educator support/reasons for not wanting to be contacted by an arthritis educator.