Assessment of fatigue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: relation with disease activity and healthrelth-related quality of life / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the prevalence of fatigue in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and its relationship with other clinical and functional parameters used for the evaluation of disease activity and health related quality of life. Methods The fatigue was assessed in 230 patients with RA using visual analogue scale (VAS). The correlation between fatigue and the clinical disease activity including morning stiffness, pain, PGA, physician's global assessment, TJC, TJI, SJC, SJI, DAS28, HAQ and health-related quality of life were assessed. Results The prevalence of fatigue was 85.7% and the fatigue score of 51.7% patients was higher than 50 mm. After controlled for the possible confounding factors such as age, gender and disease duration, it was found that fatigue was highly correlated with pain, disease activity, functional disability, physical health and mental health. Conclusion Fatigue is an important symptom of RA and is correlated with pain, disease activity, functional disability and health-related quality of life.