Evaluation of pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in terms of gender and disease characteristics

This study was conducted as a descriptive study with the aim of evaluating pain in individuals diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) in terms of gender and disease characteristics and determining the relationship between symptoms. After obtaining ethics committee, institutional permission and patient approval fort he study, 332 patients diagnosed with RA who were treated in a rheumatology outpatient clinic and service of a university were included in the study. In this study, which was conducted between January 2022 and January 2023, 'questionnaire' and 'McGill Melzack Pain Questionnaire' were used as data collection tools. The data obtained were evaluated with Mann- Whitney U, Pearson Chi-Square, Chi-Square, Kruskal- Wallis tests. p<0.001 was considered statistically significant. There was a significant difference between the patients gender, education level, smoking and alcohol use, and Mcgill Melzack Pain Questionnaire score averages, the fatigue score of patients who felt severe and extreme fatigue was higher than that of patients who felt mild and moderate fatigue, and the intensity of pain felt was higher in female patients. It was determined that it was expressed as high and this was significant, and that there was a relationship between gender and comorbidity, swelling in the joints and the severity of fatigue felt. In live with these results, it can be recommended to evaluate all the symptoms of the patients, especially complaints of pain, fatigue and mornings stiffness, to make plans to help them cope with these symptoms, and to evaluate the pain of female patients more frequently and to use appropriate methods for pain control.