AB0399 Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease: A Global Disease Assessment Index that Correlates with Activity and Function in RA Patients

Abstract

BackgroundPain is a major feature in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), often occurring with other symptoms and functional impairment, which are difficult to assess. An increasing interest has been dedicated to the patient perspective in the assessment of RA, by using indexes that approach other health domains such as fatigue, well-being and sleep disturbance. Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease (RAID) includes seven domains (pain, function, fatigue, sleep disturbance, physical and psychological wellbeing, sleep disturbance and coping), which enable the assessment of the global impact of the disease, through the patient perspective.ObjectivesTo compare, in a cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the impact of the disease assessed with RAID questionnaire and Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), and to identify possible association with disease activity (as assessed by DAS28-3v).MethodsCross-sectional study, enrolling outpatients attending a Rheumatology Department, diagnosed with RA. All patients answered both HAQ and RAID at the same visit; DAS28-3v was determined. Statistical analysis with SPSS, version 18; a p value <0.05 with a 95% confidence interval was assumed.ResultsAmong the 68 patients enrolled, 45 were male; age was 61.15±13.6 years. Mean RAID value was 3.59±2.24; in 21 patients, RAID was ≥5. As expected, the question with higher mean value was that referring to pain (3.93±2.64). Mean HAQ value was 0.3±0.47 and mean DAS28-3v was 2.74±1.06 (corresponding to low disease activity).In our cohort, the increase in RAID value is significantly correlated with an increase in HAQ value – particularly when RAID≥4 (p=0.01). All items assessed by RAID are significantly associated with HAQ value – being the highest correlation identified for functional impairment (p=0.009). RAID value was also associated with DAS28-3v (p=0.02). No correlation was found between RAID and age and no significant difference between genders was identified.ConclusionsThis work demonstrates the usefulness of RAID in the assessment of RA, presenting a good correlation with HAQ, that assesses functional impairment - being this correlation stronger for higher RAID values. In our cohort, there was also a correlation between RAID and disease activity, as assessed using DAS28-3v. The evaluation of RA patients should include autofill indexes that assess global impact of the disease; RAID gathers the features to be included among those indexes.ReferencesDougados M, Brault Y, Logeart I, van der Heijde D, Gossec L, Kvien T. Defining cut-off values for disease activity states and improvement scores for patient-reported outcomes: the exemple of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease (RAID). Arthritis Res Ther. 2012 May 30;14(3).Disclosure of InterestNone declared