Arthritis At Home 338 – Why ACE is listening to women living with arthritis
Sixty-seven per cent (67%) of people with arthritis are women, making it the most reported chronic disease for women in Canada, but important gaps remain in our understanding of their experiences with diagnosis, treatment and daily life.
In a new Arthritis at Home episode, Arthritis Consumer Experts (ACE) President Cheryl Koehn talks about why ACE launched its National Survey on Women and Arthritis and what we hope to learn directly from women living with the disease.
Cheryl discusses some of the questions ACE wants the survey to help answer. Are women’s symptoms being taken seriously when they first seek care? Where are delays occurring between diagnosis and receiving the right treatment? How do arthritis and treatment decisions affect work, family responsibilities and different stages of a woman’s life?
She also explains how ACE plans to use the survey findings to identify gaps in care and develop specific recommendations for governments, public and private drug plans and other healthcare decision makers.
If you are a woman living with arthritis in Canada and have not yet completed the survey, we want to hear from you. The survey takes approximately 10–15 minutes, and responses are anonymous.
Click here to take the National Survey on Women and Arthritis.