Author(s)

Helena Lööf, Unn-Britt Johansson, Elisabet Welin Henriksson, Staffan Lindblad, Fredrik Saboonchi

Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital, Division of Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden.
Karolinska Institutet, Department of Learning Informatics, Management and Ethics, Stockholm, Sweden.
Karolinska Institutet, Division of Nursing, Department of Neurobiology and Rheumatology Unit, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Sophiahemmet University, Stockholm, Sweden.

Background: Patients and clinicians report pain and fatigue as key outcome measures in rheumatoid arthritis. Fatigue and pain are a major concern to patients. Aim: The objective of this study was to examine fatigue and pain in adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to investigate the association between pain and fatigue with body awareness, demographic, disease-related, emotional and psychosocial factors. Method: Data were collected from a sample of patients with RA (n = 120) recruited from a Rheumatology clinic in a large university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. Eligible for inclusion were patients between 20 -80 years of age and with a confirmed diagnosis of RA. Fatigue was measured using the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue (MAF) scale, while the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was used to assess components of pain. A multiple stepwise regression analysis was performed to evaluate factors related to fatigue and pain. In the first step a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for all relevant independent factors. In the next step backwards stepwise regression was applied. Result: Fatigue was significantly associated with the Disease Activity Score 28-joints (DAS 28) (p = 0.049), the Body Awareness Questionnaire (BAQ) (p = 0.006), the Positive Affect (PA) scale (p = 0.008) and no smoking (p = 0.021). Pain was significantly associated with the EuroQol EQ-5D (p = 0.008) and the DAS 28 (p = 0.001). The adjusted R-square was 28.6% for fatigue and 50.0% for pain. Conclusion: This study clearly demonstrates that fatigue and pain in patients with RA appear to be associated with disease-related factors. Furthermore, fatigue was related to body awareness and emotional factors, and pain was related to health related quality of life.

Pain; Fatigue; Emotional; Psychosocial; Rheumatoid Arthritis

Lööf, H. , Johansson, U. , Henriksson, E. , Lindblad, S. and Saboonchi, F. (2013) Pain and fatigue in adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis: Association with body awareness, demographic, disease-related, emotional and psychosocial factors. Open Journal of Nursing, 3, 293-300. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2013.32040.