Prevalence of symptomatic osteoarthritis in rural areas of Shanxi Province / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the prevalence of symptomatic osteoarthritis (OA) in rural areas of Shanxi,China.Methods All the residents above 16 years old from the villages chosen by multi-stage stratified cluster sampling in Yangcheng County and Pianguan County in Shanxi Province were investigated with COPCORD procedure of WHO.All the respondents signed the informed consent forms.All statistical analysis were carried out using SAS 9.2 and SPSS standard version 13.0.Chi-square test was used for statistical analysis.P value ＜0.05 was regarded as statistically significant.Results The investigation in these two counties covered 7 126 residents,including 1 734 symptomatic OA patients,with a prevalence rate of 24.3％,where knee OA had the highest prevalence rate [13.8％(983/7 126)],other figures were as followslumbar vertebra,neck,hand,shoulder,elbow,ankle,hip,wrist,thoracic vertebra and foot.There were statistical differences in the prevalence of knee,ankle,neck,shoulder and hand between the two genders (P＜0.05).Conclusion The prevalence of symptomatic OA in rural areas of Shanxi,China is relatively high,but the risk factors still need to be further studied and proved.