Less pain, greater self-efficacy, and better walking capacity in women with knee OA

Women with knee osteoarthritis who experienced less pain and greater self-efficacy for functional tasks had better maximal walking capacity and stair ascent time, but not stair descent time at 2 years, according to results presented at the Osteoarthritis Research Society International World Congress.

Mr. TinDC Photo CC

by Casey Tingle, Healio April 29, 2017

“Our patient-reported outcomes of pain and self-efficacy were useful in predicting future mobility performance in this group,” Monica R. Maly said in her presentation. “Interestingly, an interaction between self-efficacy where among those women who have low self-efficacy at baseline, poor quadriceps capacity, either strength or power, was related to worsening stair ascent.”

Maly and colleagues from University of Waterloo and McMaster collected quadriceps strength and power among 37 women with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Maly said they also collected pain and self-efficacy through validated questionnaires and used the 6-minute walk test, a stair ascent test and a stair descent test to measure mobility performance. Regression analyses were performed, first unadjusted and then adjusted for age, BMI and baseline score.

In a span of 2.2 years, results showed little change in follow-up scores for the 6-minute walk test, stair ascent test and stair descent test.

“However, there was variation within the group. When we took a look at change in 6-minute walk scores, we saw that our covariate model of age, BMI and baseline score could help us predict who would have change in this variable,” Maly said. “We saw our patient-reported outcomes, both pain and self-efficacy, could add to that variance.”

While study covariates and pain did not contribute to the stair ascent test, Maly noted self-efficacy predicted change.

“We found a relationship between the change in stair ascent time and quadriceps strength, mainly in people who had low self-efficacy at baseline,” Maly said. “In those with high self-efficacy at baseline, [there was] no relationship.”

She also noted a similar result between self-efficacy and power, while change could not be predicted with quadriceps capacity or patient-reported outcomes for stair descent.

Source Healio

References

Patient-reported outcomes interact with muscle capacity to predict two-year stair ascent performance in women with clinical knee osteoarthritis, Paper 24. N M Brisson, PW Stratford, MR Maly. OARSI 2017 World Congress On Osteoarthritis, Las Vegas NV, April 27-30, 2017