Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a virtual community of practice to improve the empowerment of patients with ischaemic heart disease: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP) or knowledge-sharing virtual communities offer ubiquitous access to information and exchange possibilities for people in similar situations, which might be especially valuable for the self-management of patients with chronic diseases. In view of the scarce evidence on the clinical and economic impact of these interventions on chronic conditions, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a VCoP in the improvement of the activation and other patient empowerment measures in patients with ischaemic heart disease (IHD).

Methods And Analysis: A pragmatic randomised controlled trial will be performed in Catalonia, Madrid and Canary Islands, Spain.

The effectiveness of a web-based decision aid for patients with hip osteoarthritis: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a health condition sensitive to patient's preferences and values regarding the benefits and risks of the different treatment options. In this sense, patient decision aids (PtDA) can play an important role in helping patients to incorporate their values, needs, and preferences into the decision-making process, thus improving person-centered care. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on knee OA, and therefore, the aim of this study is to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a PtDA for patients with hip OA.