The Evaluation Of Quality Of Life In Women With Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis And Fibromyalgia As Compared With Quality Of Life In Normal Women.
S Kolahi, A Khbazi, M Hajaliloo, L Namvar, H Farzin
Keywords
fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, quality of life., rheumatoid arthritis
Citation
S Kolahi, A Khbazi, M Hajaliloo, L Namvar, H Farzin. The Evaluation Of Quality Of Life In Women With Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis And Fibromyalgia As Compared With Quality Of Life In Normal Women.. The Internet Journal of Rheumatology. 2010 Volume 7 Number 1.
Abstract
Introduction
Rheumatic diseases are inflammatory and chronic conditions. These can influence patients and their family, exclusively(1-4).The health situation involved quality of life measurement and evaluation for patients with chronic disease is most impartment for promising .Individuals have different culture and in different positions, have various definition of pain, fatigue and total posture(5-6). Rheumatoid arthritis is associated with psycho-social dysfunction and increased mortality and press heavy pressure on patient and his family (5).Also, osteoarthritis is a chronic disease that influence quality of life and in multiple studies, have showed its association with depression (7).Several studies have showed quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia is lower than normal groups (8).In attention to this point that quality of life has essential role in treatment effectiveness, we promise to evaluation quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis ,osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia.
Methods and Material
In this case-control study,400 women (based on pilot studies), grouped healthy ,fibromyalgia, knee osteoarthritis ,rheumatoid arthritis in Tabriz University’s Rheumatology Clinics from April 2009 until April 2010. The patients, who have stress accidents in 6 months before, were excluded from study. Rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia diagnosis based on American college of rheumatology scales (ACR)(9).Pain severity in osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia based on visual analogue scale(VAS) and in rheumatoid arthritis based on DAS(10).Four groups have same age, body mass index, education and job. Finally, quality of life evaluated with SF-36 Persian questionnaire by 100 women aged 35-55 of each group. SF-36 evaluated 8 aspects of individual health involved physical activity, physical role or role restriction result as physical problems, pain, mental health, emotional role or role restriction result as emotional problems, vital force and general health. In attention to four subgroup are associated with physical aspect and another four subgroup are associated with mental aspect, we can calculate mean of physical component summary and mental component summary. Two total score, initially involve physical and mental health. Finally, scores of different aspects in this questionnaire conform to zero scale (the lower level of quality) until 100(the highest level of quality). The interpretation and comparison the results of SF-36 based on normal scaling showed mean of each scales is 50 and standard deviation is 10.With increasing score, quality of life is increased (11). The quantity Samples analyzed by One-way ANOVA, Student T-test (Independent Samples) and categorical samples analyzed by chi-Square test or fisher's exact test.
Results
Basic information in 4 groups was abbreviated in table1,2. On this base, the statistically significant different didn’t between groups. The quality of life has been shown in table 2. In case group, the mean advantage of physical health significantly higher than mental health(p=0.006).In fibromyalgia (p=0.136)and osteoarthritis(p=0.367) groups, the mean advantage of physical and mental health haven’t statistically significant different, but in rheumatoid arthritis group, the mean advantage of mental health was significant higher than physical health(p=0.002).The significant reverse correlation were between pain , mental and physical health in all groups(p<0.001,r=-0.404),(p<0.001,r=-0.820),so as with increasing pain score decreased mental and physical health. The Das mean in rheumatoid arthritis groups was 2.9±1.4(1.2-5.9).The significant reverse correlation were between DAS and physical role(p=0.30,r=-0.291),psychological role(p=0.047,r=-0.095),social function(p=0.039,r=-0.245),physical health(p=0.038,r=-0.223)and mental health(p=0.009,r=-0.374).
Figure 1
Figure 2
Discussion
In this study, we survey and comparison the quality of life by SF-56 questionnaire in female patients with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and healthy. Case group had better condition in relation to another groups. Birtane et al (2007) studied 3 groups with rheumatoid arthritis(35), fibromyalgia(30)and healthy cases(30) by SF-36 questionnaire. In all aspects, case group was better than another groups(12).Tander et al (2008) surveyed 3 groups of rheumatoid arthritis(30), fibromyalgia(30) and healthy case(30) by SF-36.All subgroups of quality of life except mental health were better in case group(13).Slatkowsky-Christensen et al(2007)evaluated women with hand osteoarthritis(190),rheumatoid arthritis(194) and healthy (144) by SF-36 questionnaire. Also here, all aspects of quality of life were better in case group (14).Salaffi et al (2009) evaluated 469 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 1579 healthy person by SF-36 questionnaire. Case group had better conditions (15).Hoffman and et al (2007) had same result in meta-analyze(37 study)of fibromyalgia and healthy patients(16).In comparison with these results, except similarity between this study and Tander et al (13) that hadn’t shown any significant difference in mental health component among patient and healthy groups, but healthy persons had better scores of quality of life. We studied several groups with cases that explain any difference between with patients and healthy persons in special aspects of quality of life. For example, cases had significantly better physical role, psychological role, general role and mental role in comparison with fibromyalgia group. Also, rheumatoid arthritis group had bad physical role, psychological role and mental role in comparison with cases. On the other hand, depression and anxiety may be influence quality of life (17). Comparison case group’s physical and mental scores had been shown that mental health score significantly lower than physical score. Its meaning is healthy persons had previously mental disorders. Ozcetin(2007)showed that sever pain in fibromyalgia with influence on mental health result to bad patient function (17).Mental disorders screening would be receive true results in future studies. These patients have lower Quality of life than healthy. This finding is parallel with previous records (18, 19).Fibromyalgia group had worse psychological role and mental role than rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis group had worse physical function. In Birtane et al study, fibromyalgia group only had mental health worse than rheumatoid arthritis (12), this result was same with our study. In Walker et al (1997) study, all subgroups of quality of life except physical function in patients with fibromyalgia were worse than Rheumatoid arthritis (20).Salaffi et al (2009) survey on 380 patients with fibromyalgia and 693 patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed that rheumatoid group’s physical function and fibromyalgia group’s mental health were significantly worse (15).In our study, physical function and mental health in rheumatoid arthritis group was worse than fibromyalgia group. Tander et al (2008) study showed that physical role, social function and pain in fibromyalgia group were worse(13), but in our study parameters between 2 groups hadn’t any statistically significant different. It seems that physical findings in rheumatoid arthritis could be explaining bad function in these patients (21). Comparison of fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis groups showed that all subgroups of quality of life in fibromyalgia were worse. Also, Yilmaz et al (2008) survey showed this result but pain of osteoarthritis (22) and Ozcetin(2007) showed except physical role, another parameters associated with high quality of life in fibromyalgia was worse than osteoarthritis(17).Our results and followed studies in this ground almost are same, but we should have restriction in comparison with osteoarthritis group ,such as what joint has arthritis and its effect on quality of life. For example, quality isn’t same in knee, hand and femoral osteoarthritis (23).On the other hand, have been showen that unwanted effects of osteoarthritis on quality of life could be seen over 50 years (24), but we studied younger than 50 years patients .In comparison of 2 groups with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis were pain, physical function and health worse in rheumatoid arthritis. Other parameters associated with quality of life had no statistically significant difference .In Slatkowsky-Christensen et al (2007) studied quality of life by Sf-36 questionnaire in two groups with hand osteoarthritis(190 patients) and rheumatoid arthritis (194 patients).On this base, physical health and function in rheumatoid arthritis and mental health in osteoarthritis were worse(14).In other study by Slatkowsky-Christensen et al (2009),physical function in rheumatoid arthritis and pain in osteoarthritis(25).These results were same with our findings.
Conclusion
Physical function, pain, mental health and physical health in case group were significantly better than 3 patient groups. In attention to these results, several aspects of quality of life in osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia decreased. Overall, in side of physician and general treatment, attending to interventional process in increasing quality of life, especially for patients with fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis are important. We suggest to survey mental parameters role such as depression and anxiety in future studies for comparison of quality of life.