Healthy living in inflammatory arthritis

The clinical outcomes of patients with an inflammatory arthritis (IA), including rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis, have improved enormously due to the further development of their management strategies. As a result >80% of the IA patients reach low disease activity. Despite reaching low disease activity, the disease still has a significant impact on patients’ lives, which manifests itself in persistent fatigue, pain and morning stiffness. This residual disease activity is less in IA patients who are in remission. Unfortunately, remission occurs less often and is not always achievable with current DMARD treatment. In addition, IA patients still often want to taper their medication, despite the risk of a disease flare, because (fear of) side effects.

For aforementioned IA patients an lifestyle intervention program might be of added value. Lifestyle intervention programs can reduce inflammatory activity and subsequently might lessen disease impact and the risk of a flare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of an online interactive lifestyle intervention program with general nutrition recommendations in rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis patients with a low disease activity from a clinical, patient's as well as a societal point of view.

Patients are randomised into an online, interactive lifestyle intervention program or general nutrition recommendations. The lifestyle intervention program (called Leef! met reuma) consists of an intensive part of 6 months, followed by an aftercare program of 18 months. Patients have a personal responsibility for the implementation of a healthier lifestyle after the given tools.

If successful, this study will show that residual disease activity can be treated resulting in less disease burden, reflected by a higher remission and tapering without flare percentage, and lower costs (health care and societal).