Investigation of the relationship among symtoms, functional status and quality of life in early and late stage rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical symptoms, functional statusand quality of life in early and late stage patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and toinvestigate the effects of clinical symptoms on functional status and quality of life.Methods: Seventy eight Norwegian patients with RA were included in the study and 32patients were early stage RA and 46 patients were late stage RA. The intensity of painand fatigue (VAS), duration of morning stiffness (minute) and the numbers of swollen,painful and limited joints were evaluated. The Short Form of Health AssessmentQuestionnaire (HAQ-DI) was used to assess the functional status of the patients with RAand Generic Short Form-36 (SF-36) was used to assess quality of life of the patients.Results: It was determined that numbers of swollen, limited and painful joints andduration of morning stiffness in patients with early stage RA were lower statisticallythan patients with late stage RA (p<0.05). In addition, differences of HAQ-DI, SF-36physical function (PF), role physical (RP), bodily pain (BP) subscales scores and physicalcomponent summary (PCS) scores in two groups were statistically significant (p<0.05).It was not found a correlation between clinical symptoms with HAQ-DI and SF-36summary scores in early stage of RA (p>0.05). In contrary, there was a correlationbetween duration of morning stiffness with HAQ-DI score in late stage RA (p<0.05).Also, there was a correlation statistically between PCS score of SF-36 with intensity ofpain, duration of morning stiffness and intensity of fatigue in the same group patients(p<0.05).Conclusion: As a conclusion of this study, intensity of pain and fatigue and mentalhealth related to quality of life was similar in early and late stage of RA. There are noeffects of clinical symptoms on functional status and quality of life in early stage of RA.While, duration of morning stiffness is major influenced symptom on functional status,intensity of pain, morning stiffness and intensity of fatigue are the affecting factors forphysical health related to quality of life in patient with late stage of RA.Key words: Rheumatoid arthritis, disease duration, functional status and quality of life.