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Italian doctoral student wants to find out why so few osteoarthritis patients receive proper care

Simone sitting by his desk in front of his computer, smiling into the camera

Research has shown that only one out of three individuals with osteoarthritis receives appropriate care. Doctoral candidate Simone Battista aims to explore why many osteoarthritis patients are not offered the right treatment. Simultaneously, he seeks to understand how aware individuals with osteoarthritis are of available treatments to alleviate osteoarthritis symptoms. This study is a collaboration between the University of Genoa in Italy and Lund University.

This article was published on our Swedish page in december 2021 but was never translated to english. In a few weeks you will read more about Simone Battista and his (now) finished work. 

Simone completed his physiotherapy degree at the University of Milan in 2016 and continued to pursue a master’s degree in physiotherapy at the University of Verona. During his studies, he had the opportunity to work part-time as a research assistant, which allowed him to extend his impact beyond clinical work with patients.

After obtaining his master’s degree, Simone was eager to continue his research. Instead of returning to clinical practice, he embarked on an international doctoral program, jointly offered by the University of Genoa in Italy and Lund University.

Most of his research is currently tied to Italy, approximately 5–6 studies will form the basis of his final dissertation.

Simone’s goal is to create a model that explains why so few osteoarthritis patients receive appropriate care. He has already completed two studies:

  1. The first study involved interviewing clinicians in Italy who work with osteoarthritis patients to assess their knowledge of recommended treatments for osteoarthritis.
  2. For the second study, Simone interviewed osteoarthritis patients in Italy to understand their perspectives on various osteoarthritis treatments and their awareness of these options.

Based on his interviews, Simone concluded that most individuals with osteoarthritis in Italy have limited knowledge of available treatment options1

After conducting all the interviews, Simone concluded that most individuals with osteoarthritis in Italy have very little knowledge of available treatment options for osteoarthritis. For instance, very few understood the importance of exercise in managing osteoarthritis. The majority believed that joint replacement surgery was the only effective treatment and thus neglected basic interventions after diagnosis.

When patients hold this perspective, likely due to their lack of awareness about available treatments, it poses a significant challenge for a nation. It results in substantial healthcare costs, as the majority of osteoarthritis patients eventually require surgery during their lifetime.

Simone plans to conduct two out of his 5-6 studies in Sweden next year, under the guidance of Professor Martin Englund and postdoctoral researcher Andrea Dell’isola. One of these studies, funded by the Lerici Foundation, aims to compare osteoarthritis patients’ socioeconomic status with pain, function, and treatment outcomes. Data from Swedish patient registries, including the Swedish osteoarthritis registry and the Swedish joint prosthesis registry, will be analyzed.

Despite the interesting results from patient interviews in Italy, Simone seeks broader-scale insights. Thanks to a grant from the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), he will conduct a quantitative study on osteoarthritis patients’ knowledge of non-pharmacological and non-surgical treatments in Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The study will involve distributing a questionnaire to osteoarthritis patients in all four countries.

The ultimate goal of this research is to understand how individuals with osteoarthritis manage their condition and what they consider appropriate treatment. By identifying areas for improvement, this complex healthcare process can better serve osteoarthritis patients.

The ultimate goal of the study is to understand how individuals with osteoarthritis manage their condition and what they consider to be the right treatment for osteoarthritis, in order to identify areas that need improvement. Since individuals with osteoarthritis are crucial in this complex healthcare process, their input is necessary to ensure that treatment recommendations incorporate a patient perspective.