Anxiety and depression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) mostly follows a painful, progressively disabling course, and individuals with RA experience more psychological distress than healthy individuals. The objective of the present study is to examine the prevalences of accompanying anxiety and depression in RA cases. The study included 82 RA cases and 41 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers as the control group. Psychiatric examinations of all cases of the patient and control groups were performed according to DSM-IV criteria. Hamilton Anxiety Scale or Hamilton Depression Scale was applied to those who were found to have anxiety or depression. Total prevalence of anxiety, depression, and mixed anxiety-depressive disorder was found to be 70.8% (n=58) in the patient group and 7.3% (n=3) in the control group, and the difference was significant (p<0.001). Of the RA patients, 41.5% (n=34) was found to have depression, 13.4% (n=11) anxiety, and 15.9% (n=13) mixed anxiety-depressive disorder. The disease duration in patients with anxiety was shorter than the RA patient with depression (p<0.05). The disease duration was positively correlated with the degree of depression and negatively correlated with the degree of anxiety (r=0.341, p<0.05; r=-0.642, p<0.05, respectively). The results of our study suggest that prevalences of anxiety and mainly depression, increase in RA cases. When the clinical picture in RA cases becomes complicated with anxiety or depression, some problems at patients' adaptation and response to treatment may be possible. RA cases should be monitored for accompanying anxiety or depression during follow-up.

Depression in Autoimmune Diseases

“…In particular, depression has been documented to contribute significantly to impaired HRQoL, unemployment and loss of work productivity. Depression is very common in RA, the prevalence reported to be 13 to 42% (Isik et al, 2007). As reviewed recently, depression in RA provides an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and myocardial infarction, suicidal ideation and death, even after controlling for RA disease duration, disease activity, disability and pain (Margaretten et al, 2011).…”

Assessment of sleep health in patients with rheumatic disease

“…Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic illness that affects 1.3 million adults in the USA [2], is a systemic inflammatory disease that affects people both physically and psychologically. Major depressive disorder is common in patients with RA, with a prevalence of 13–42% [3–9], at least double to four-times that in the general population. The wide range in the prevalence of depression in clinical studies of RA is likely due to the different methods used for measuring depressive symptoms.…”

Cost of Depression in Japanese Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Evidence from Administrative Data

“…Accumulating evidence from clinical and epidemiological studies indicates that depression is highly prevalent as a common comorbidity in patients affected with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [1][2][3]. While the prevalence of depression differs significantly among studies, as high as 42% of patients with RA have been reported to be affected by depression [4].…”