AB0672 PSYCHOLOGIC STATE OF PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATIC DISEASES AFTER THE OUTBREAK OF SARS-COV2

Abstract

Background: The ongoing Coronavirus-19 disease epidemic is a public health emergency of international concern which could pose a challenge to psychological resilience. This is mainly the case of patients with rheumatic diseases (RD). Objectives: The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in patients with RD and to identify factors associated with psychological stress. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among patients with RD. They were invited to respond to a survey designed to assess their psychological response after the outbreak of the SARS-COV2 pandemic. Mental health status after the Covid-19 was evaluated using the Depression and Anxiety Scale (DASS-21). The total depression subscale score was divided into normal (0-9), mild depression (10-12), moderate depression (13-20), severe depression (21-27), and extremely severe depression (28-42). The total anxiety subscale score was divided into normal (0-6), mild anxiety (7-9), moderate anxiety (10-14), severe anxiety (15-19), and extremely severe anxiety (20-42).The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) is a 22-item self-administered questionnaire that assesses the post-traumatic state (PTS). A cut-off point of 33 provided the best diagnostic accuracy for PTS. The level of significance was fixed at 0.05. Results: Sixty patients were included (42 with rheumatoid arthritis and 18 with spondylarthritis) with a mean age of 51.3 ± 13.1 years [18-75]. The majority of patients were women (63.3%), married (81.7%), with a household size of 3-5 people (67.9%). The mean disease duration was 11.9 ±5.6 [1-23] years. According to DASS depression score almost half of the patients (47%) suffered from depression, which was classified as severe in 10% of cases. The mean DASS anxiety subscale was 12.6 ± 8.2 [1-35]. The level of anxiety was mild in 23% of cases, moderate in 25% of cases, and severe in 23.3% of cases. The mean ILES-R score was 20.4 ± 10.2 [20-38]. Women experienced more PTS than men (26.3% vs 22.7%) without reaching a statistically significant correlation (p=0.9). Patients with higher education had lower IES-R, depression, and anxiety subscale scores as compared to those who were illiterate without a statistically significant correlation (p=0.5, p=0.2, p=0.4 respectively). A positive correlation was found between anxiety score and IES-R (p=0.00). Other sociodemographic variables including disease duration, parental status, marital status, and household size were not associated with IES-R and DASS subscale scores (p>0.05). Conclusion: Our study showed that many of our patients with RD experienced anxiety, depression, and PTS after the outbreak of Covid-19. Professional status as well as other sociodemographic data was not associated with psychological stress.