Online on par with in-person care for improving functional, psychological outcomes of psoriasis patients

An online health model appears to be as effective as in-person care for decreasing functional impairment and depressive symptoms in patients with psoriasis, according to a study.

A 12-month randomized controlled equivalency trial was conducted to determine how a novel online health model that facilitates physician-patient collaboration performed in comparison with in-person care for improving functional status and mental health of patients with psoriasis.

The research team randomly assigned a total of 296 participants to receive online or in-person care. Then, they evaluated functional impairment and depression at baseline and at 3-month intervals using the 5-level EuroQol-5 Dimensions index and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9.

Overall improvement in the EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale had a difference of ‒0.002 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], ‒2.749 to 2.745) between groups, which falls within an equivalence margin of ±8. Moreover, the between-group difference was 0 (95 percent CI, ‒0.003 to 0.003) in overall improvement in the 5-level EuroQol-5 Dimensions index, which falls within an equivalence margin of ±1.

Finally, the difference in overall improvement in Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score between the online and in-person arms was ‒0.33 (95 percent CI, ‒1.20 to 0.55), falling within an equivalence margin of ±3.

These results suggest that “[t]he online health model was equivalent to in-person care for reducing functional impairment and depressive symptoms in patients with psoriasis,” the researchers said.

The study was limited by the slightly different attrition rates between online and in-person arms (11 percent vs 9 percent), but this did not significantly affect the outcomes, according to the researchers.