Abstract
Objectives: Osteoarthritis (OA) has a dramatic impact on patients’ health related quality of life (HRQoL). Chronic use of analgesics and anti-inflammatory medications for pain management may improve symptoms but on long term may affect HRQoL negatively. The objective of the present study was to compare the impact of two different classes of analgesics, traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and selective cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors on HRQoL among osteoarthritis patients using the SF-36 questionnaire. Methods: Clinic based cross-sectional study conducted at Al-Qassimi Hospital, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), over a period of six months. Ethical Approval was obtained from the ethics committee at Al-Qassimi Clinical Research Center. Total of 200 osteoarthritis patients fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were involved in the study. Patients’ demographics were collected from their medical records. The Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire was used to measure patients’ HRQoL. SF-36 data were scored using health outcomes scoring software 4.5. Results: Mean age of the subjects was 62.19 ± 9.81 years with females constituting 151 (75.5%) of the patients. In general, females scored lower in most of the HRQoL domains compared to males and there was significant difference between the two groups in the mental health (p = 0.005) & mental component (p = 0.042) domains. Compared to selective COX-2 inhibitors, patients on NSAIDs scored higher on all domains of SF-36 except physical functioning. There was significant difference in mental health domain for patients treated with NSAIDs (p = 0.02). Celecoxib was only better than NSAIDs in osteoarthritis patients with more than one musculoskeletal disorders in the domain of bodily pain (p = 0.009). Conclusion: NSAIDs-treated patients did not differ significantly from celecoxib-treated patients in all domains of the SF-36 except for the mental health domain.
Highlights
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic disease that has a substantial effect on patients’ health related quality of life (HRQoL) as well as an extremely high economic burden usually attributed to the treatment side effects [1]
The present study aims to compare the impact of two different classes of analgesics: traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and selective cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors on HRQoL among osteoarthritis patients using the Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire as a measurement tool
Meloxicam 7.5 mg once daily was associated with better HRQoL in the domains of general health than celecoxib 200 mg once daily (p = 0.053) and in the domain of mental health
Summary
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic disease that has a substantial effect on patients’ health related quality of life (HRQoL) as well as an extremely high economic burden usually attributed to the treatment side effects [1]. Accounting for significant disability characterized as the impaired performance of social and physical life tasks [3] [4]. Their impact on patients’ functional levels is well known and constitutes difficulties patients have to deal with, which will require long term pharmacological treatment and physical therapies [5]. The deleterious effects and impacts of osteoarthritis are well studied and mainly focusing on its consequences on health status; this is true for the efficacy of treatments which was assessed in context of health status and focused only on the objective measures of health status. HRQoL outcomes provide an effective means for clinicians to make clinically sensible decisions by providing further insight into the benefits and drawbacks of treatment options [6] [7]
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