Depression, and not disease activity, appears to have a major influence on quality of life in both Hispanic and Caucasian patients in this lupus cohort.

Both pain and depression were found to be strong predictors of fatigue, and negatively correlated with energy. Disease activity did not appear to play a significant role in lupus fatigue. These findings support the importance of managing depression and pain in order to reduce fatigue in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that can significantly impact both physiological and psychological functioning. In order to examine the relationship between psychological functioning and disease activity in SLE, we administered instruments that collected sociodemographic information and measured indices of disease activity and psychosocial functioning from 125 adult Hispanic and White patients with SLE. Patients were recruited from four healthcare settings in the greater Southern California area. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between depression and disease activity were evaluated. Cross-sectional findings revealed that depression and ethnicity were independently correlated with self-reported disease activity. Longitudinally, depression alone predicted self-reported disease activity. These data suggest that depression may play a significant role in the health status of SLE patients and serve as an important target for clinical intervention.