[The "Hannover Chronic Polyarthritis School": development of a curriculum and implementation of a controlled study for educating patients with chronic polyarthritis].

Patient education is an important and necessary tool to facilitate coping with a chronic disease. The existing studies about new approaches to patient education and their effects are reviewed and discussed. The interdisciplinary team of the MRH tried to improve the deficient situation concerning patient education in rheumatology in Germany. They elaborated the "cP-Schule Hannover", a curriculum for patient education in small groups in an outpatient clinic setting. The courses include eight sessions taught by a psychologist and performed by a team of health professionals. Four groups with a total of 31 RA-sufferers have been evaluated in a controlled prospective study over 3 months. The significant effects of this patient education program were an increase of knowledge and satisfaction which were still evident after a follow-up period of 3 months. Negative side-effects like worsening of psychological status were not observed. Based on these positive experiences and results a "patient education" working group was founded in late 1989. This working group is a member of the German Association of Rheumatology. It focuses on the elaboration of a structured, supra-regional standardized patient education program for rheumatoid arthritis consisting of several modules.