Impairment of quality of life: rheumatoid arthritis versus sarcoidosis

Abstract

Impairment of quality of lifeWirnsberger, R.M.; de Vries, J.; Jansen, T.L.Th.A.; van Heck, G.L.; Wouters, E.F.M.; Drent, M. Published in:The Netherlands Journal of Medicine Document version:Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.-Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research -You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain -You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright, please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Abstract Background: Quality of life (QOL) has become an important item in health care. QOL should be a major target of treatment in chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and sarcoidosis. The aim of this study was to compare the impact of RA and sarcoidosis on patients' QOL. We expected more serious impairment of QOL in the RA group than in the sarcoidosis group.Methods: QOL was studied in RA patients (n 5 32), sarcoidosis patients (n 5 37), and a healthy control group (n 5 37) employing the World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment instrument (WHOQOL-100).Results: In both patient groups QOL was impaired with respect to Physical Health, Level of Independence (P , 0.001), and Overall QOL and General Health (P , 0.01). Moreover, RA patients appeared to have a lower QOL with respect to Pain and Discomfort (P , 0.001) and Mobility (P , 0.001).Conclusions: In RA and sarcoidosis, fatigue and sleep were major problems. In contrast to our expectations, with respect to activities of daily living and working capacity, the two patient groups did not show any difference. Impairment of QOL was more serious and included more aspects of QOL in RA than in sarcoidosis. (See Editorial p. 83.)

Fatigue, quality of life and health status in sarcoidosis

“…Sarcoidosis has a considerable impact on the QoL of patients, especially in those with current symptoms, but also, to a lesser extent, in patients with a relatively mild respiratory functional impairment [4]. This conclusion was affirmed in three other QoL studies [12,57,58].…”

“…Fatigue, sleep, activities of daily living and working capacity were major problems in sarcoidosis, as well as rheumatoid arthritis, patients. As might be expected, rheumatoid arthritis patients demonstrated more problems related to pain and mobility [57]. In another study, sex differences were examined with regard to QoL and symptoms [12].…”

“…Concerning QoL, nonspecific symptoms, such as fatigue and pain, have an important impact on the QoL of sarcoidosis patients [12,18,57]. In one study [4], 64 sarcoidosis patients completed the WHOQOL-100 and a symptom checklist.…”

Physical activity and training in sarcoidosis: review and experience-based recommendations

“…Sarcoidosis-associated fatigue and exercise capacity have important associations with QoL, especially in the domain of physical health [17,[37][38][39][40]. Even so, the fatigue associated with systemic inflammation is multidimensional and can be subclassified as general, mental, physical, or motivational fatigue.…”

Association Between Fatigue and Pain in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Does Pain Precede Fatigue or Does Fatigue Precede Pain?

“…Although chronic inflammation may cause fatigue, in RA it has been shown that pain, rather than inflammation, is associated with fatigue severity (4,(7)(8)(9)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). Fatigue and pain often co-occur, and there are previous mainly cross-sectional studies showing that more fatigue is strongly associated with more pain (4,8,9,16).…”