Mind the gap - Evaluation of the promotion initiatives for implementation of the GLA:D® back clinician courses

The GLA:D® Canada program for knee and hip osteoarthritis: A comprehensive profile of program participants from 2017 to 2022

BACKGROUND

The Good Life with osteoArthritis in Denmark (GLA:D®) program was implemented in Canada in 2017 with the aim of making treatment guideline-recommended care available to the 4 million Canadians with knee and hip osteoarthritis (OA). This report describes the GLA:D® Canada program, registry and data collection procedures, and summarizes the sociodemographic and clinical profile of participants with knee and hip OA to inform the scientific research community of the availability of these data for future investigations and collaborations.

METHODS

The GLA:D® program consists of three standardized components: a training course for health care providers, a group-based patient education and exercise therapy program, and a participant data registry. Patients seeking care for knee or hip OA symptoms and enrolling in GLA:D® are given the option to provide data to the GLA:D® Canada registry. Participants agreeing to provide data complete a pre-program survey and are followed up after 3-, and 12-months. Data collected on the pre-program and follow-up surveys include sociodemographic factors, clinical characteristics, health status measures, and objective physical function tests. These variables were selected to capture information across relevant health constructs and for future research investigations.

RESULTS

At 2022 year-end, a total of 15,193 (11,228 knee; 3,965 hip) participants were included in the GLA:D® Canada registry with 7,527 (knee; 67.0%) and 2,798 (hip; 70.6%) providing pre-program data. Participants were 66 years of age on average, predominately female, and overweight or obese. Typically, participants had knee or hip problems for multiple years prior to initiating GLA:D®, multiple symptomatic knee and hip joints, and at least one medical comorbidity. Before starting the program, the average pain intensity was 5 out of 10, with approximately 2 out of 3 participants using pain medication and 1 in 3 participants reporting a desire to have joint surgery. Likewise, 9 out 10 participants report having previously been given a diagnosis of OA, with 9 out 10 also reporting having had a radiograph, of which approximately 87% reported the radiograph showed signs of OA.

CONCLUSION

We have described the GLA:D® Canada program, registry and data collection procedures, and provided a detailed summary to date of the profiles of participants with knee and hip OA. These individual participant data have the potential to be linked with local health administrative data registries and comparatively assessed with other international GLA:D® registries. Researchers are invited to make use of these rich datasets and participate in collaborative endeavours to tackle questions of Canadian and global importance for a large and growing clinical population of individuals with hip and knee OA.

GLA:D® Back Australia: a mixed methods feasibility study for implementation

Background

Practice-based guidelines recommend patient education and exercise as first-line care for low back pain (LBP); however, these recommendations are not routinely delivered in practice. GLA:D® Back, developed in Denmark to assist clinicians to implement guideline recommendations, offers a structured education and supervised exercise program for people with LBP in addition to a clinical registry to evaluate patient outcomes. In this study we evaluated the feasibility of implementing the GLA:D® Back program in Australia. We considered clinician and patient recruitment and retention, program fidelity, exploring clinicians’ and patients’ experiences with the program, and participant outcome data collection.

Methods

Clinicians (chiropractors and physiotherapists) were recruited and participated in a 2-day GLA:D® Back training course. Patients were eligible to participate if they had persistent or recurrent LBP. Feasibility domains included the ability to: (1) recruit clinicians to undergo training; (2) recruit and retain patients in the program; (3) observe program fidelity; and (4) perceive barriers and facilitators for GLA:D® Back implementation. We also collected data related to: (5) clinician confidence, attitudes, and behaviour; and (6) patient self-reported outcomes related to pain, disability, and performance tests.

Results

Twenty clinicians (8 chiropractors, 12 physiotherapists) participated in the training, with 55% (11/20) offering GLA:D® Back to their patients. Fifty-seven patients were enrolled in the program, with 67% (38/57) attending the final follow-up assessment. Loss to follow up was mainly due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We observed program fidelity, with clinicians generally delivering the program as intended. Interviews revealed two clinician themes related to: (i) intervention acceptability; and (ii) barriers and facilitators to implementation. Patient interviews revealed themes related to: (i) intervention acceptability; and (ii) program efficacy. At 3 months follow-up, clinicians demonstrated high treatment confidence and biomedical orientation. Patient outcomes trended towards improvement.

Conclusion

GLA:D® Back implementation in Australia appears feasible based on clinician recruitment, program acceptability and potential benefits for patient outcomes from the small sample of participating clinicians and patients. However, COVID-19 impacted patient recruitment, retention, and data collection. To scale-up GLA:D® Back in private and public settings, further work is warranted to address associated barriers, and to leverage facilitators.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12998-022-00427-3.