{"doi":"10.1002/acr.24710","title":"Factors Influencing Patient Decision‐Making Concerning Treatment Escalation in Raynaud’s Phenomenon Secondary to Systemic Sclerosis","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: To explore patient priorities and ranking of factors influencing patient decision-making concerning treatment escalation in the management of Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) secondary to systemic sclerosis (SSc). METHODS: Patients with SSc were invited to participate in an online survey disseminated through patient-led organizations and social media platforms. RESULTS: Responses from 747 individuals with self-reported SSc-RP were evaluable with broad international representation. The mean ± SD age (54.7 ± 12.1 years), clinical phenotype, and disease subsets distribution (limited cutaneous SSc [402 of 747, 53.8%], diffuse cutaneous SSc [260 of 747, 34.8%], and overlap disease [85 of 747, 11.4%]) were consistent with expected demographic information. Around one-half (56.3%) of patients reported that their SSc-RP symptoms were adequately controlled. The 5 highest ranked factors (of 13) that would prompt treatment escalation for SSc-RP were as follows: 1) inability to use the fingers properly; 2) emergence of new digital ulcer on ≥1 fingers; 3) worsening pain or discomfort from RP; 4) more severe attacks; and 5) if it may help with internal problems. Despite symptoms not being adequately controlled, 47.1% were concerned about potential treatment side effects and were more likely to accept mild (~20-40%) versus severe (2%) side effects. Patients were open to different management strategies for uncontrolled RP that included adding new treatment in combination with existing treatment (52.8%), drug substitution (40.9%), increasing the current dose (28.8%), or focusing on nonpharmacologic approaches (29.7%). CONCLUSION: We have identified the relative importance of different factors influencing patient preferences for treatment decision-making regarding SSc-RP. Side-effect profiles influence acceptability of drug treatments, and many patients report a preference for nonpharmacologic management of SSc-RP.","journal":"Arthritis Care & Research","year":2021,"id":191962,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":12,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9257,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":309890,"name":"Suiyuan Huang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":320003,"name":"John D Pauling","orcid":"0000-0002-2793-2364","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":759034,"name":"Maya Sabbagh","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249352,"name":"Dinesh Khanna","orcid":"0000-0003-1412-4453","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":552554,"name":"Michael Hughes","orcid":"0000-0003-3361-4909","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:49:39.281850Z","pmid":"34057304","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}