Arthritis is a common term used to describe 200 rheumatic disorders affecting our joints. It is not a single term but covers a broad perspective. There is no cure for arthritis and patients often face a range of stresses such as adjusting to fluctuations in symptoms (e g. joint pain) and treatment (e g. medication changes). These are engaged in coping mechanisms like accessing medication-related information. Many studies have reviewed attentional coping style among patients with a variety of acute health diseases (e g. cancer screening) and a few studies have explored coping styles among patients with chronic diseases (e g. asthma and multiple sclerosis), where stress is present but not always acute. 

According to a study led by the University of North Carolina and Eshelman School of Pharmacy, arthritis patients were more likely to be high monitors (health detail oriented) than high blunters (health detail avoidant). High monitors attend to and prefer more information but blunters tend to avoid and prefer less information. Study findings reveal that the attentional coping styles of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) tend not to be associated with self-management behaviors such as how patients have medication related discussions with their doctors and medication adherence. Findings tends to be more consistent when addressed with medical stressors. This study was published online on September 30,2016 in “The Open Rheumatology Journal”.    

Lorie Geryk, a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at Eshelman School of Pharmacy and lead author of the study, exclaimed that, "When we investigated the relationship between RA and OA patients, attentional coping styles and behaviors related to medication information we were surprised that we did not see results in accordance with the characteristic patterns outlined in the acute and chronic disease coping literature. In fact, counter to expected coping trends, we found that higher monitoring was associated with less information-receipt for RA patients and among OA patients, higher blunting was associated with more information-receipt."

It is culminated that more research is needed in this prospect to better understand the long term relationship between coping style and patient medication-related behaviors in order to clarify why and when health-relevant information is likely to benefit arthritis patients.