Abstract
Objective In psoriatic arthritis (PsA), comorbidities add to the burden of disease, which may lead to poorer quality of life. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between comorbidities and quality of life (QoL).
Methods Patients from a multicentric, cross-sectional study on comorbidities in PsA were included in the analysis. Data on comorbidities were collected and were subsequently used to compute the modified Rheumatic Disease Comorbidity Index (mRDCI). The Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36) physical (PCS) and mental component (MCS) summary scales were used to assess QoL.
Results In total, 124 recruited patients fulfilled the CASPAR criteria: 62.1% were male; mean age and mean disease duration were 52.6 ± 12.6 and 11.3 ± 9.6 respectively. The number of comorbid conditions was 2.0 ± 1.3, with 30.6% of the sample having a current or past history of 3 or more comorbidities. In the multivariate linear regression analysis, only anxiety remained significantly related to mental health (p<0.0001). Anxiety alone accounted for 28.7% of the variance in MCS scores. Moreover, MCS was also significantly associated with the mRDCI score, which explained 4.9% of the variance in MCS (β=-1.56 (0.64), R2=0.049, p=0.0167). In contrast, PCS was not significantly associated either with type or number of comorbidities.
Conclusion In this study, the type of comorbidity appeared to have a greater impact than the number of comorbidities. Indeed, anxiety in PsA was independently associated with QoL and would thus be an important factor to take into account in daily clinical practice.
In this issue
