Quality of life in patients with ankylosing spondylitis and risk factors that affect quality of life

Objective; Ankylosing spondylitis is a prototype of disease of spondyloarthropathies which is chronic and charactarized by inflammation of spinal and peripheral joints that leads to bone fusion. As in many chronic diseases, quality of life is affected negatively by the disease in patients with ankylosing spondylitis. In this study we aimed to investigate the factors that affect quality of life in patients with ankylosing spondylitis and compare AS patients with the control group for depression, anxiety, fatigue and sleep disorders which are matched by age, gender, education and work situation.Method; 60 patients, diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis according to the modified New York criteria, who applied to Karadeniz Technical University Medical Faculty, were included in the study and control group was selected as 60 healthy adults. The patients were matched with the control group by age, gender, body mass index (BMI), marital status, education and work status, smoking and use of alcohol. The disease activity was measured by Bath AS disease activity index (BASDAI), spinal mobility was measured by Bath AS metrology index (BASMI) and functional status was measured by Bath AS functional index (BASFI). ASQoL was used to evaluate the quality of life of patients with ankylosing spondylitis. Moreover, Beck depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality index (PSQI), Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) was carried out to the patients by comparing with the control group.Results; The education and work status have been determined as the factors that affect the quality of life of patients with ankylosing spondylitis. Besides, we observed that VAS and BASDAI values were higher in women patients. Compared to the control group, emotional status, fatigue and sleep quality level were worse in patients with ankylosing spondylitis. We have observed that the quality of life gets worse as the disease activity increases and there was a meaningful correlation between ASQoL and BASDAI, BASFI, VAS, BASMI and depression and anxiety inventories.Conclusion; We believe that knowing the factors that effect quality of life and to determine which areas of life are affected will be instructive in defining the treatment strategies.