Impact of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis on the patients’ quality of life

Abstract EN

Objective : to determine the impact of various rheumatic disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) on the quality of life (QOL) of those patients and correlate their functional status, disease activity and severity with their QOL.

Subjects : the study was performed on 3 groups of patients.

Group I included 30 RA patients, they were 25 females and 5 males, Group II included 30 PsA patients suffering from psoriatic skin lesion and arthropathy, they were 18 females and 12 males.

While Group III included 12 AS patients, they were 2 females and 10 males.

Methodology : the sociodemographic data for all patients were collected including age, sex, duration of disease, status of living and educational level.

Evaluation of functional disability, disease activity, severity and disease-specific quality of life questionnaire for each group were done.

Results : there was a significant association between high QOL score (poor QOL) and female sex in groups I and II, while there was no significant association observed in group III.

Also, a significant association occurred between high QOL score in the 3 groups of the study and low educational level.

While no association was noticed with the status of living in any of the groups of the study.

Also, no significant correlation was observed between QOL and age or duration of the disease.

While a high significant correlation occurred between poor QOL and measures of functional disability, disease activity and severity of the disease in each group.

Conclusion: chronic disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis have a substantial impact on health and quality of life.

Since clinical outcome and QOL are two different concepts of health, so measurements of both provide us with complementary information on the extent and severity of a disease and the burden of a disease and its treatment to the patients.