Self-assessment of Flare in Osteoarthritis of Lower Limbs

The need for a tool to measure flare in lower limb osteoarthritis (OA of the hip and knee) is justified by the opportunities for development of clinical trials targeting hip and knee OA long-term treatment (slow acting drug, disease modifying drug) and short-term treatment of symptoms. Such treatments are currently under development and will likely bring important changes in the treatment of patients. The development of a Flare-OA tool would be essential to capture the occurrence of flare, and to implement and adapt treatment strategies. This project was elaborated with the aims to: 1. define the construct through development of a conceptual framework 2. use the conceptual framework to inform the development of a patient-reported outcome measure, Flare-OA tool, for people with OA 3. evaluate the psychometric properties of the new measure using the OMERACT (Outcome Measures in Rheumatology) filter 2.0 and Rasch measurement methods.