Background to the trial
On this page:
Why is the research being done?
At the moment, hospital specialists who treat Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) plan treatment by asking patients how their symptoms have been since their last appointment.
However, in some cases that last appointment may have been many months ago. Because of this, patients may not remember how their symptoms have been, and they may forget to report important events like disease flares.
To help resolve this, a team of researchers, doctors and patients with RA have developed an app. The app enables patients with RA to track their symptoms daily using their smartphone or tablet.
This information is then sent to their electronic patient record for discussion with their health care professional at their next hospital appointment. The REMORA app was designed specifically for the REMORA1 trial by a team at The University of Manchester, and is being used in this trial.
From this previous work, we know that patients and specialists like the REMORA system, but as yet we do not know if it improves treatment planning and health outcomes. We would like to undertake a trial to test this.
The REMORA2 trial aims to support patients of all ages, backgrounds and with varying levels of digital skills to access and use the REMORA app. We will explore what it would take to use the information collected by the app across the NHS, and test its effects on the care and health of patients with RA and understand issues around this.
Our goal is to make it easier for patients to share symptom data with their health care professional to help improve the care and outcomes of people living with long-term conditions such as RA.
Who is doing the research?
The trial is being conducted by researchers from the Centre for Epidemiology Versus Arthritis at The University of Manchester.
The project is being led by Professor William Dixon and Dr Sabine van der Veer with funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). You can meet members of the study team involved with REMORA2 on our team page.
The trial has been reviewed and given ethical approval by an NHS Research Ethics Committee.
Why should I participate?
This research will look at whether patients whose hospital doctor has extra information about their RA symptoms from the REMORA app do better than those who do not have this information.
The REMORA app will enable patients to record changes in their RA symptoms over time, which may otherwise have been forgotten about between appointments.
If the REMORA2 trial can demonstrate that using symptom tracking improves disease activity and quality of life, and leads to better shared decision-making between the patient and the health care professional, then we will aim to make the system available across the NHS.
This could potentially improve the care and lives of thousands of patients living with RA and other long-term conditions.
In the Information for participants section:
Contact Us
Email: remora2@manchester.ac.uk
