Happy Hands - an E-self-management Intervention for People With Hand Osteoarthritis (HappyHands)

The main aim of this project is to assess the effect, cost-effectiveness and user experiences with using an e-self-management intervention in addition to treatment as usual compared to treatment as usual alone in patients with hand osteoarthritis. The study is an RCT comprising approx 400 participants with hand osteoarthritis recruited from primary and secondary healthcare in all four health regions in Norway.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Hand Osteoarthritis
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: e-self-management intervention (Happy Hands app); Other: Treatment as usual

Detailed Description

Hand osteoarthritis (OA) is a highly prevalent rheumatic joint disease, and the number of people living with debilitating hand OA will continue to rise in the coming decades due to increased life expectancy. Research shows that patients with hand OA have poor access to recommended treatment, and in Norway, they are increasingly referred to surgical consultation before having received recommended first-line treatment. Thus, there is a need to develop easily viable models of care for patients with hand OA that make recommended treatment available across different healthcare levels.

Our hypotheses are that an e-self-management intervention for people with hand OA will improve pain and function and be more cost-effective compared to treatment as usual, and that this app can easily be implemented in both specialist and primary healthcare. The hypotheses will be tested and explored in a randomized controlled trial, with a qualitative study nested within this trial.

The main research questions are:

1. To evaluate whether a 12-week e-self-management intervention is more effective in improving pain and function (according to the OMERACT-OARSI responder criteria26) compared to usual care in patients with hand OA (randomized controlled trial).
2. To determine the cost-effectiveness of the e-self-management intervention compared to usual care after 6 months (randomized controlled trial).
3. To explore patients' experience of barriers and facilitators for adopted and continued use of a e-self-management intervention for treatment of hand OA (qualitative interviews).

Secondary research questions will also be assessed.

Approx 400 patients will be recruited in this multicenter randomized controlled trial where patients with hand OA are allocated to either usual care or a 12-week e-self-management intervention delivered through a smartphone app (the HAPPY Hands app). Outcome measures are collected at baseline, 3 months (=end of intervention) and 6 months

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 386
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Norway
  • Arendal, Norway
    • Arendal sykehus
  • Bergen, Norway
    • Haukeland Universitetssykehus
  • Bjørkelangen, Norway
    • Aurskog Fysikalske Institutt
  • Bodø, Norway
    • Nordlandssykehuset
  • Førde, Norway
    • Lærdal Sjukehus
  • Kirkenes, Norway
    • Finnmarkssykehuset, Kirkenes Sykehus
  • Kongsvinger, Norway
    • Kongsvinger sykehus
  • Kristiansand, Norway
    • Kristiansand sykehus
  • Levanger, Norway
    • Levanger sykehus
  • Lillehammer, Norway
    • Revmatismesykehuset Lillehammer
  • Meråker, Norway
    • Meråker kurbad
  • Nøtterøy, Norway
    • Nøtterøy Fysioterapi
  • Oslo, Norway
    • Diakonhjemmet Hospital
  • Sandvika, Norway
    • Humana Helse
  • Tromsø, Norway
    • Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge
  • Trondheim, Norway
    • St.Olavs Hospital
  • Tønsberg, Norway
    • Helsehuset Stokke
  • Vikersund, Norway
    • Vikersund bad
  • Ålesund, Norway
    • Alesund sjukehus

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 36 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• People diagnosed with hand osteoarthritis
• Possessing a smartphone

Exclusion Criteria:

• cognitive deficits
• are scheduled for hand surgery within the next 3 months
• do not talk or understand Norwegian,
• have uncontrolled serious comorbidities

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Treatment as usual	Other: Treatment as usual; Treatment as usual may vary from no treatment at all to referral to a patient education group program, or occupational therapy.
Experimental: e-self-management intervention; 12-week e-self-management intervention consisting of exercise videos and videos with information about recommended treatment	Other: e-self-management intervention (Happy Hands app); The 12-week intervention consists of 30 short informational videos addressing the themes prioritized by the patient research partners. These themes are further operationalized into the following categories: "Information on hand OA", "Hand exercises", "Use of assistive devices and orthoses", "Medication and surgical alternatives", and "Self-management of the disease". Additionally, the intervention includes a hand exercise program consisting of 8 videos providing instructions on warm up, exercises to improve mobility, strength and coordination, and a stretching exercise. The intervention group will additionally receive treatment as usual.; Other: Treatment as usual; Treatment as usual may vary from no treatment at all to referral to a patient education group program, or occupational therapy.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
OMERACT/OARSI responder criteria	Combined score of change in pain, function and disease activity. Patients are categorized into responders or non-responders according to the following: High improvement on pain or function: ≥50% improvement + absolute change of ≥2 in pain (numeric rating scale, NRS 0-10), OR; ≥50% improvement + absolute change of ≥0.6 in function (Measure of Activity Performance of the Hand, MAP-Hand) Improvement in at least two of the three following: ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥1 in pain (NRS); ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥0.3 in function (MAP-Hand); ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥1 in global assessment of disease activity (NRS)	Baseline and 3 months follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
eHealth literacy	Measured with the eHEALS questionnaire, Norwegian version. 8 questions conserning eHealth literacy (strongly disagree - strongly agree)	Baseline
Number of painful joints	Number of painful joints on left and right hand	Baseline
OMERACT/OARSI responder criteria long-term	Combined score of change in pain, function and disease activity. Patients are categorized into responders or non-responders according to the following: High improvement on pain or function: ≥50% improvement + absolute change of ≥2 in pain (numeric rating scale, NRS 0-10), OR; ≥50% improvement + absolute change of ≥0.6 in function (Measure of Activity Performance of the Hand, MAP-Hand) Improvement in at least two of the three following: ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥1 in pain (NRS); ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥0.3 in function (MAP-Hand); ≥20% improvement + absolute change of ≥1 in global assessment of disease activity (NRS)	3 and 6 months follow-up
Pain intensity	Numeric rating scale (0-10), 0=no pain, 10= worst possible pain	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Pain intensity (intervention group)	Numeric rating scale (0-10), 0=no pain, 10= worst possible pain, measured after each exercise session	3 times weekly in the intervention period (12 weeks)
Stiffness	Numeric rating scale (0-10),0=no stiffness, 10= worst possible stiffness	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Stiffness (intervention group)	Numeric rating scale (0-10),0=no stiffness, 10= worst possible stiffness, measured after each exercise session	3 times weekly in the intervention period (12 weeks)
Disease activity	Numeric rating scale (0-10), 0=no disease activity; 10=high disease activity	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Disease activity (intervention group)	Numeric rating scale (0-10), 0=no disease activity; 10=high disease activity, measured each month in the intervention period	Monthly in the intervention period (12 weeks)
Measure of Activity performance (MAP-Hand)	18 questions conserning activity performance of the hand (1=no problem, 4=cannot do the activity), mean score from 1-4.	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Measure of Activity performance (MAP-Hand) (intervention group)	18 questions conserning activity performance of the hand (1=no problem, 4=cannot do the activity), mean score from 1-4.	Monthly in the intervention period (12 weeks)
Grip strength	Measured with Jamar dynamometer (kg), mean of two measures for each hand	Baseline and 3 months follow-up
Quality indicators for hand osteoarthritis treatment	Quality indicators based on the OA-QI questionnaire, adopted to fit the treatment recommendations of hand osteoarthritis. 16 questions answered with yes, no or not appriopriate/do not know. Measured as pass rate.	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Change in condition	Global rating of change scale, likert scale with 7 answer options from much better to much worse	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Change in condition (intervention group)	Global rating of change scale, likert scale with 7 answer options from much better to much worse	Monthly in the intervention group (3 months)
Motivation for hand exercises	Numeric rating scale (0-10), 0=no motivation, 10=best motivation	Baseline and 3 monhts follow-up
Health-related quality of life	Measured with EQ5D-5L, 5 questions used to calculate an utility score (0-1, 1= best health), assessed as a total score across all timepoints	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Health care utilization	Costs related to self-reported healthcare use in primary and secondary health care. Patients will be asked if they have been seeking healthcare (yes/no), if yes, they will be asked to specify type of healthcare use and time used.	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Medication use	Medication use will be self-reported by the patient	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Adverse events	Number of adverse events, serious adverse events, and withdrawals because of adverse events. Will be self-reported	3 and 6 months follow-up
Sickleave	Sickleave due to hand osteoarthritis will be self-reported	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Fatigue	Fatigue last week measured on an 11-point NRS (0=no fatigue, 10=worst possible fatigue)	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
Patient satisfaction with care	1 item with five point response options ranging from "Very satisfied" to "Very dissatisfied", higher value indicate better outcome	Baseline, 3 and 6 months follow-up
System Usability Scale (SUS)	Questionnaire assessing the usability of the Happy Hands app, 10 questions (strongly agree - strongly disagree), index from 0-100 where 100 is best score	3 month follow-up
Adherence to exercise	Number of exercises performed (0-36 exercise sessions), collected from the app	3 times weekly during the intervention period (3 months)
Adherence to exercise long-term	Number of exercises performed after completion of intervention, collected from the app	3 and 6 months follow-up
Adherence to informational videos	Number of informational videos watched, collected from the app	During the intervention period (3 months)
Adherence to informational videos long-term	Number of informational videos watched, collected from the app	3 and 6 months follow-up
Arthritis self-efficacy scale	Measured by Arthritis Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES): comprises 11 items addressing pain and symptoms (scored on a 5-point scale ranging from not confident at all to very confident). The scores are summed up to a 0-100 score where higher score indicate better self-efficacy.	Baseline
Demographic variable	Age, gender, other painful joints, sivil status, education, previous hand surgery, previous treatment, comorbidities	Baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Diakonhjemmet Hospital
• Collaborators: The Dam Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Anne Therese Tveter, PhD, Diakonhjemmet Hospital

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 8, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 1, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): February 29, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 3, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 3, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): October 6, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 13, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 9, 2025
• Last Verified: April 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Musculoskeletal Diseases; Arthritis; Joint Diseases; Rheumatic Diseases; Osteoarthritis
• Other Study ID Numbers: REK 477746

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Individual participant data be made available when upon reasonable request to the principal investigator. The data are not available before they can be anonymoused.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Study protocol will be available from 1.11.22. SAP will be available before initation of analyses.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: E-mail the principal investigator for access to supporting information.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No