Sociodemographic and economic barriers to initial specialist care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a scoping review
Ainsworth, Jack, Bolic, Marita, Ismail, Ibrahim, Mohammadpour, Zinat, and Wood, John (2025) Sociodemographic and economic barriers to initial specialist care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a scoping review. BMC Rheumatology, 9 (1). 76.
|
PDF (Published Version)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that can cause joint destruction, pain, loss of function, and reduced quality of life. Recent advancements in treatment have made it possible to control the impacts of this once-debilitating disease through early intervention. While numerous studies have examined barriers to rheumatoid arthritis care, no review has synthesized sociodemographic and economic factors across high-, upper middle-, and lower middle-income countries. This gap in the literature highlights the need for a comprehensive review that informs global health interventions. This review explores sociodemographic and economic barriers to initial specialist care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Methods: The review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A search of CINAHL, MEDLINE, Scopus and Emcare was completed in May 2024.
Results: Of the 5165 studies identified through the literature search, 121 full-text articles were reviewed, and 25 studies examining sociodemographic and economic barriers to specialist care were selected for analysis. A total of 17 high-income, one upper middle-income and seven lower middle-income countries were represented. Low socioeconomic status, low income and rurality were consistently reported as barriers to initial rheumatologist appointments across all countries in this review.
Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of addressing common barriers such as low socioeconomic status and rurality in global health interventions. Future large prospective studies are essential to better understand the relationship between sociodemographic factors and timely access to care.
| Item ID: | 87692 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2520-1026 |
| Keywords: | Access to care, Health disparities, Rheumatoid arthritis, Socioeconomic factors |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2025 01:41 |
| FoR Codes: | 32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3202 Clinical sciences > 320223 Rheumatology and arthritis @ 50% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200499 Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified @ 100% |
| More Statistics |
Actions (Repository Staff Only)
 |
Item Control Page |