Artrosskola i primärvården. Pilotstudie av 14 ars erfarenheter från Malmö.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the major diseases. Physical activity has shown to have positive effects on joint cartilage and on function as well as to reduce pain among patients with OA. Patient education is one way to increase knowledge about the disease and how to cope with it. Patient education, distributed to OA-patients by a multidisciplinary team in primary health care has been used successfully in Malmö for 14 years. About 100 patients per year participate. Evaluation with Arthritis self-efficacy scale after the education-programme has shown positive effects on function and on coping with pain and other symptoms. In this article we describe the programme and our experience of patient education for OA patients in primary health care. The patient education programme is currently being evaluated with a randomized, controlled trial