Agreement between rheumatologist visit and lay interviewer telephone survey for screening for rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthropathy.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate agreement between a rheumatologist visit and a telephone interview by a patient organization member, regarding the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or spondyloarthropathy (SpA) and the classification criteria for these two conditions.


METHODS
Patients underwent a standardized interview and physical examination by hospital-based rheumatologists, who diagnosed RA in 230 cases, SpA in 175, and other conditions (controls) in 195. Members of patient organizations then used a standardized questionnaire to interview the patients by telephone about their diagnosis and about 1987 ACR classification criteria for RA and the ESSG criteria for SpA.


RESULTS
Agreement between the two sources of data was poor for the classification criteria but satisfactory for the diagnosis (kappa, 0.84 (0.81-0.87) for RA and 0.78 (0.75-0.81) for SpA).


CONCLUSIONS
Standardized telephone interviews conducted by patient organization members accurately identify the diagnosis made by rheumatologists based on a physical examination and medical record review, whereas agreement is poor regarding classification criteria for RA and SpA.
Saraux
Alain
A
Rheumatology Department, Hôpital de la Cavale Blanche, CHU Brest, 29609 Brest cedex, France. alain.saraux@univ-brest.fr
Guillemin
Francis
F
Fardellone
Patrice
P
Guggenbuhl
Pascal
P
Behier
Jehan Michel
JM
Cantagrel
Alain
A
Euller-Ziegler
Liana
L
Flipo
René Marc
RM
Juvin
Robert
R
Le Loet
Xavier
X
Masson
Charles
C
Sany
Jacques
J
Schaeverbeke
Thierry
T
Coste
Joel
J
D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D009819:Office Visits; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D025242:Spondylarthropathies / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires