RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Do illness perceptions and coping strategies change over time in patients recently diagnosed with axial spondyloarthritis? JF The Journal of Rheumatology JO J Rheumatol FD The Journal of Rheumatology SP jrheum.191353 DO 10.3899/jrheum.191353 A1 Miranda van Lunteren A1 Robert Landewé A1 Camilla Fongen A1 Roberta Ramonda A1 Désirée van der Heijde A1 Floris A. van Gaalen YR 2020 UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2020/05/09/jrheum.191353.abstract AB Objective It is unknown if in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) patients illness perceptions and coping strategies change when disease activity changes. Methods Patients diagnosed with axSpA and ≥1 follow-up visit (1 and/or 2 year(s)) in the SPACE-cohort were included. Mixed linear models were used for illness perceptions (range:1-5), coping (range:1-4), back pain (NRS:0-10), health-related quality of life (HRQoL range:0-100 (physical (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS)), work productivity loss (WPL), and activity impairment (AI, range:0-100%), separately, to test if they changed over time. Results At baseline, 150 axSpA patients (mean age 30.4 years,51% female,65% HLA-B27+) had a mean (SD) VAS back pain of 4.0(2.5), PCS of 28.8(14.0), MCS of 47.8(12.4), WPL of 34.1%(29.8) and AI of 38.7%(27.9). Over two years, clinically and statistically significant improvements were seen in the proportion of patients with ASDAS low disease activity (from 39% to 68%), back pain (-1.5(2.2)), AI (-14.4%(27.2)), PCS (11.1(13.3)) and WPL (-15.3%(28.7)), but MCS did not change (0.7(13.9),p=0.201). In contrast, illness perceptions and coping strategies did not change over a period of two years. For example, at two years patients believed that their illness had severe ‘consequences’ (2.8(0.9)) and they had negative emotions (e.g. feeling upset or fear) towards their illness (‘emotional representation’, 2.5(0.8)). Patients most often coped with their pain by putting pain into perspective (‘comforting cognitions’, 2.8(0.6)) and tended to cope with limitations by being optimistic (‘optimism’,2.9(0.7)). Conclusion Whilst back pain, disease activity, and health outcomes clearly improved over 2 years, illness perceptions and coping strategies remained remarkably stable.