PARE0018 We do the impossible, because the possible everyone can do wad awareness campaign
Authors: H Bankova, B Ivkov, S Bozhinova, B Boteva
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2017)

<h3>Background</h3> One of the main priorities that Bulgarian organization for people with rheumatic diseases follows is dissemination of knowledge and information about RMD9S and their impact on people9s life and to the society. The WAD awareness campaign is the culmination of the organization9s activities during the whole year. <h3>Objectives</h3> The main goal of the 2016 WAD awareness campaign was to: Inform the society and BOPRD9s members about the social importance of RMD9s. To inform BOPRD9s members what are their rights as people with long term chronic condition. To inform the society about RMD9s and the challenges that people with RMD9s face. To challenge the people with RMD9s to look into their inner world and to define what are their strengths and weaknesses. To make the informing process more attractive, by visualizing the key features of life with an RMD. <h3>Methods</h3> In 2016 BOPRD organized an awareness campaign - "We do the impossible, because the possible everyone can do" The start of our campaign was on 1st of October and lasted for more than two weeks till the World arthritis day and ended on 16th of October. Informative and motivating pictures, with information about different RMD9s, were published every day on the official BOPRD9s Facebook page and were shared in the closed group for people with rheumatic diseases as well. A social experiment among the members of the organization was made. They were asked to explain what the disease means to them, like they are telling the story to a person who do not know anything about it. The aim of this experiment was to identify the meaning and significance which people with rheumatic diseases give to their condition, as well as the basic problems result from the illness. Based on the social experiment and analysis of 33 small biographical narratives 17 basic characteristics of the rheumatic diseases are identified. These characteristics form the problematic areas for people with RMD9s and bases for their study. The main characteristics are life with chronic pain, the process of disabling, life in continuous compliance with the environment and the high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity, imposed by chronic illness. An e-booklet, containing the results of the social experiment was published on BOPRD9s Facebook page and website on 12th October. On the same day we published the WAD video, of the PARE WAD campaign: "The future is in your hands". At the end of the awareness campaign we published an online booklet, which contained translated articles about RMD9s and the different aspects of life with a chronic condition. <h3>Results</h3> The total number of all publications is 22. The publications were seen from over 3 000 people. The WAD video was seen by 1000 people. The results of the social experiment were seen by 1500 people. The most popular were those pictures that managed to touch people9s feelings. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Main common characteristics of rheumatic diseases were identified and can help patients in getting the right diagnosis. The most popular were the posts that were related to emotions and experience of life with a chronic condition. By publishing the results of the social experiment we managed to help those who read the narratives get the feeling that they are not alone. The results of the social experiment will be used as a basis in developing a manual for the main symptoms of RMD9s (the patient perspective) <h3>Acknowledgements</h3> Miglena Ivanova Cveta Apostolova <h3>Disclosure of Interest</h3> None declared