Relative importance of the functional abilities comprising Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index among rheumatoid arthritis patients

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the relative importance of the twenty functions assessed by patients to produce the Health Assessment Questionnaire's Disability Index (HAQ-DI).Methods: A systematic sample of 242 rheumatoid arthritis patients was drawn. Altogether 179 subjects returned acceptably filled questionnaire including perceived rheumatoid arthritis status in the 20 functions comprising the HAQ-DI. A separate complementary questionnaire was sent to 80 randomly chosen subjects. They were asked to estimate how important each of the same twenty items were in their everyday life by using the VAS method. Completely answered complementary questionnaires were returned by 66 (88%) of the subsample.Results: The relative importance of the functions assessed varied considerably. Men assessed the highest importance to the ability to walk outdoors on flat ground and women to dressing themselves, getting in and out of bed and washing and drying their body. For both genders the least important function was the ability to take a tub bath. The importance of all other functions except taking a tub bath were positively highly significantly correlated with the importance of each of the other functions. Factor analyses with one factor model showed high loadings on most functions, with the exception of 'Take a tub bath'. The two factor model formed one factor with loadings concentrating slightly more on 'lower extremity' and another on 'upper extremity'.Conclusions: Assessment of RA patients' functional status would benefit from further development of measures by giving relative weights from patients' perspective to those functional abilities which are used for index computations.

Effect of traditional Chinese Yijinjing exercise on hand dysfunction in rheumatoid arthritis patients: a randomized controlled trial

“…As advised by the American College of Rheumatology, the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) has been thoroughly validated and measured in most RA trials [33] . The scale contains 20 questions about daily activities such as dressing, brushing, getting up, eating, strolling, maintaining personal hygiene, touching, and holding [34] .…”