Quality of life, duration of the disease and the level of pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to evaluate life quality of people suffering from RA and determine the influence of illness duration and degree of pain intensity on their quality of life. The group of subjects comprised of 189 people: 104 (55.03%) with diagnosed RA and 85 (44.97%) healthy people as control group. Mean age in the group of ill subjects was 57.66 ±11.30 and 68 ±8.99 in the control group. In the research, self-constructed questionnaire, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and shortened version of WHOQoL-Bref were used. Assumed significance level was p < 0.05. Patients with RA received statistically significantly lower scores of life quality in all domains as compared with the control group. In the group of ill subjects, social domain (14.91 ±2.40) obtained highest scores whereas physical domain received lowest scores (11.96 ±1.69). The main somatic issue connected with the illness reported by 95.19% of subjects was experienced joint pain. Mean degree of perceived pain in VAS scale reached 7.37 ±1.86 points and it significantly lowered life quality of ill subjects. The results regarding life quality in four life domains (i.e. physical, psychological, social and environmental) were definitely better than in the control group.