The Use of Educational Strategies in the Care of People with Chronic Arthritis: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Chronic joint diseases affect a large number of people worldwide, with considerable economic and social impact due to compromised quality of life and physical limitations. This scoping review was conducted based on the Joanna Briggs Institute’s theoretical framework following the PRISMA 2020 methodology and registered on the Open Science Framework platform (https://osf.io/ksm6j). Based on the initial question about the use of educational technologies in chronic arthritis, searches were conducted in four databases and gray literature, resulting in 35 articles included for full-text reading. Most used educational technologies for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (22), and the rest for inflammatory arthritis (7), osteoarthritis (4), and spondyloarthritis (2). No publications on education for patients with chronic arthritis after arbovirus infections were found, despite it was a global public health problem. This unprecedented scope review, with most articles dedicated to rheumatoid arthritis, shows the lack of information available to patients with chronic joint involvement from other causes, including infectious ones, a growing cause in recent decades due to the ease of circulation of various viruses. It is concluded that there is a large gap in the area of health education and self-care for patients with chronic arthritis, which needs to be filled in order to minimize the socioeconomic, physical, and emotional repercussions of the disease.