Follow-up of individualised physical activity on prescription and individualised advice in patients with hip or knee osteoarthritis: A randomised controlled trial.
Regina Bendrik, Lena V Kallings, Kristina Bröms and 1 others
PMID 38409798WHAT IT FOUND
One hour of tailored advice matched a more intensive prescription programme for long-term activity and function in hip or knee osteoarthritis.
Advice users reported more weekly activity, but pain improved more in the prescription group. Neither approach clearly beat the other on overall outcomes.
Key findings
01Individualised physical activity on prescription with four follow-ups did not offer long-term benefits in increasing physical activity over and above individualised advice given once.
02The advice group had a mean of 66 more self-reported activity minutes per week compared to the prescription group from baseline to 24 months.
03The prescription group improved by a mean of 6.9 points more on pain scores than the advice group from baseline to 24 months.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
There was no proper control group receiving no intervention, so it is unclear if either treatment was better than natural history. Attrition was high for accelerometer data at 24 months (only 70% followed up), which may have reduced the ability to detect true differences in physical activity. Both interventions were quite similar, sharing core behaviour change techniques and patient choice, which may have minimised the detectable difference between them. Participants were already relatively physically active at baseline despite inclusion criteria, leaving less room for major improvements.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding was provided by the Uppsala-Örebro Regional Research Council and the Centre for Research and Development Uppsala University/Region Gävleborg. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or manuscript preparation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the advice group had better physical activity outcomes overall. While they reported more minutes per week, the primary accelerometer-assessed outcome showed no significant difference between groups, and the prescription group had better pain outcomes.