Challenge
Lupus is a chronic disease that disproportionately affects minorities, particularly Black and Latino women, with increased disease symptom severity, disease complications, and mortality. Clinical trials offer a significant amount of patient care and follow-up care, but minorities are underrepresented in all clinical trials, including lupus clinical trials. Participation in lupus clinic trials is essential to reduce lupus health disparities from the individual and system levels.
Approach
KDHRC, in collaboration with the American College of Rheumatology, developed, evaluated, and disseminated Materials to Increase Minority Involvement in Clinical Trials (MIMICT), a lupus educational course and materials for health care providers to increase minority participation in lupus clinical trials (LCTs). MIMICT explored the extent to which exposure to the education course significantly increased providers’ knowledge about, attitudes toward, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions to educate and refer Black and Latino patients to lupus clinical trials.
The educational course is an evidence-based, online training tool that uses interactive videos to educate primary care, dermatology, and nephrology providers about lupus and clinical trials. MIMICT also provides easy to read and understand patient materials for providers to distribute to patients to discuss during patient visits.
Findings
Participating providers exposed to MIMICT had a significant increase in knowledge, self-efficacy, and intention to refer Black and Latino patients to LCTs. Both physicians and nurses had an increase in knowledge and intentions to refer Black and Latino patients. Primary care providers, in particular, had an increase in knowledge and self-efficacy, and both physicians and nurses had an increase in knowledge and intentions to refer and in self-efficacy. Participants were highly satisfied with MIMICT and satisfaction was found to be strongly and positively correlated with the intention to refer patients to clinical trials. The findings suggest that MIMICT is an effective tool to educate providers about lupus and lupus health disparities.
Products
Information about the MIMICT education course can be located on the American College of Rheumatology website.
Related Research
Findings and outcomes related to the evaluation of the MIMICT education course will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication in Fall 2021.
