Comparison of knowledge and psychological well-being between patients with a short disease duration (≤1 year) and patients with more established rheumatoid arthritis (≥10 years duration)

Sleep disruption frequency in rheumatoid arthritis: Perceived stress predicts poor outcome over one year

“…Greater fatigue among people with RA is related to a greater number of hospital appointments (Belza et al, 1993) and decreased capacity for work (paid employment or housework; Wolfe et al, 1996). Fatigue has also been found to be less severe in people with more recently diagnosed RA (Barlow et al, 1999;Riemsma et al, 1998), a relationship might be partly explained by the logical association between older age and longer duration of RA (Treharne et al, , 2005.…”

Rheumatoid arthritis patients' knowledge of the disease and its treatments: A descriptive study

“…Barlow et al, 1999) have shown that RA patients want to have a better understanding of RA and its possible treatments, and of how RA affects patients, work, family, relationships and the future. The patients also want to know how to manage the changing symptoms in their daily lives and how to deal with the pain of RA (Barlow et al, 1999;Kyngäs et al, 2004;Neville et al, 1999). A study by Neame et al (2005) showed that women and young patients have greater information needs than do men and elderly patients.…”

“…In addition, patients receive information on physical therapy, joint protection, aids and adaptations to help them at home, and on the effects RA may have on energy levels, employment, family relationships and self-image, and on the emotional support available for them (Barlow et al, 1999). Some studies have evaluated RA patients' knowledge of their disease using specifi c questionnaires.…”

“…However, Hennell et al (2004) deliberated whether RA patient education might be too female oriented, and that this might be the reason why female RA patients showed better knowledge. The duration of RA has not previously been found to infl uence knowledge levels (Barlow et al, 1999;Hennell et al, 2004;Hill et al, 1991). However, RA patients' health status has not been improved by such patient education programmes (Niedermann et al, 2004;Riemsma et al, 2003;Schrieber and Colley, 2004).…”

Fears and beliefs of people living with rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic literature review

“…Fear of disease progression and disability was the second most described category (N = 9/32 articles reporting fears, 28.1%) ( Table 2); Fears related to pregnancy and parenting roles were reported in three articles (9.4% of the 32 articles reporting fears) ( Table 2). Patients who participated in these articles were recruited in Europe and reported the fear of drugs causing birth defects, fear of genetic transfer, fear of being unable to fulfill parenting roles, fear of not being able to prevent accidents and fear of dropping a small baby or toddler [17][18][19].…”