Background The Gout Impact Scale (GIS), part of the Gout Assessment Questionnaire 2.0, measures gout-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This study aimed to translate the GIS into Korean and validate the Korean version (K-GIS) using generic HRQOL measures. Methods The GIS was translated into Korean and back-translated into English. We asked patients aged 18 years or older who met the 2015 gout classification criteria to fill out the questionnaires (from January 2022 to June 2022); the K-GIS (5 scales [0–100 scores each]), along with the Korean version of Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and EuroQol-5 dimension (EQ-5D). We investigated the internal consistency, construct validity, and discriminative validity for gout characteristics of K-GIS. The K-GIS form was administrated to patients 4 weeks later to assess the test-retest reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results One hundred patients completed the questionnaire. The mean ± standard deviation age of the patients was 53.0 ± 15.1 years, and 99.0% of the patients were men. All scales had high degree of internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.59 to 0.96) and test-retest reliability (n = 18, ICC = 0.83 to 0.94, all P < 0.001), except for unmet gout treatment needs. Weak-to-moderate correlations were observed between the K-GIS scales and HAQ or EQ-5D (r = 0.21 to 0.46). The K-GIS scores were significantly higher in the presence of bone erosion, absence of urate-lowering therapy, serum urate levels > 6 mg/dL, frequent gout flares in the past year, and fewer comorbidities. In contrast, neither the HAQ nor the EQ-5D could discern these subsets of patients. Conclusion The K-GIS is a reliable and valid HRQOL measure for patients with gout. Higher K-GIS scores were associated with clinical characteristics leading to unfavorable outcomes, which were not demonstrated by the HAQ and EQ-5D.

Objective To evaluate treatment patterns and healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) after initiating biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) in Korean patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Patients newly diagnosed with RA in 2014 were identified and followed up on using the Korean National Health Insurance Database until 2018. The initial line of therapy (LOT) or LOT1 included patients treated with conventional DMARDs (cDMARD). Patients who started a bDMARD were assigned to LOT2 bDMARD. Those who moved from a bDMARD to a Janus kinase inhibitor were assigned to LOT3. Analyzed outcomes were treatment patterns and HCRU in LOT2 bDMARD. Results The most prescribed initial bDMARD was a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor. Seventy-five percent of patients had changes in treatment after starting a bDMARD, such as addition/removal or switch of a DMARD, and transition to LOT3. For the first and second changes in LOT2 bDMARD, adding a cDMARD to a bDMARD was more common than switching to another bDMARD (7.98% vs. 2.93% for the first change, and 17.10% vs. 6.51% for the second change). Tocilizumab was the most common bDMARD that was switched to. Forty-eight percent of patients had at least one hospitalization after initiating bDMARDs. Of these patients, 64.3% were admitted due to RA-related reasons. Conclusion This real-world study provides information on treatment characteristics of RA patients in Korea after starting a bDMARD. In contrary to guidelines, cDMARD addition was more often than bDMARD switches in daily clinical practice.