Abstract
BackgroundDespite improvements in treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and spondyloarthritis (axSpA), several key unmet needs remain, such as fatigue. The objective of this study was to describe the severity of fatigue, disease characteristics and socioeconomic factors in people with RA, PsA and axSpA.MethodsThe study was designed as a cross-sectional survey collecting patient characteristics such as disease characteristics, socioeconomic factors and fatigue in people with RA, PsA and axSpA in Denmark. Respondents were consecutively recruited for the study over a six-month period in 2018 via routine visits to outpatient rheumatology clinics. Study nurses collected information on diagnosis, current disease-related treatment and disease activity from medical journals. People were invited to complete a questionnaire related to socioeconomic factors and containing the FACIT-Fatigue subscale. Descriptive statistics were analyzed using SAS.ResultsWe invited 633 people to participate, and 488 (77%) completed the questionnaire. Women constituted 62% of respondents, and the mean age was 53.5 years. Respondents had on average been diagnosed between 11 and 15 years ago. Overall, 79% had no changes to their disease-related treatment during the past year, and the average disease activity as indicated by DAS28 for RA and PsA was 2.48 and 2.36, respectively, and BASDAI for axSpA was 28.40. Fatigue was present in all three diagnoses (mean: 34.31). The mean fatigue score varied from respondents answering that they suffered from no or little fatigue (mean: 45.48) to extreme fatigue (mean: 10.11). Analyses demonstrated that the respondents were not considerably different from nonrespondents, and the study population is considered representative compared with Danish RA and axSpA patients in the Danish National Rheumatology Registry, the DANBIO database.ConclusionWe found that the majority of the study population were fatigued (61%). They had low disease activity and few disease-related treatment changes.
Highlights
Fatigue is described as extreme tiredness, typically resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness [1]
We found that the majority of the study population were fatigued (61%)
One of the most commonly known illnesses to cause fatigue is inflammatory arthritis, and several studies have demonstrated that fatigue is a prevalent symptom in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and spondyloarthritis [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
Summary
Fatigue is described as extreme tiredness, typically resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness [1]. One of the most commonly known illnesses to cause fatigue is inflammatory arthritis, and several studies have demonstrated that fatigue is a prevalent symptom in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and spondyloarthritis (axSpA) [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. RA-related factors (e.g., inflammation, pain) are associated with greater fatigue, but other factors, such as physical inactivity, sleep disturbance and depression, explain the major differences in fatigue [3]. Despite this recent increased focus on fatigue in arthritis, there is still a lack of research analyzing the severity of fatigue across diagnoses in inflammatory arthritis such as PsA and axSpA. The objective of this study was to describe the severity of fatigue, disease characteristics and socioeconomic factors in people with RA, PsA and axSpA
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