Anxiety in rheumatoid arthritis

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Arthritis Rheum. 2004 Jun 15;51(3):408-12.

Anxiety in rheumatoid arthritis.

VanDyke MM, JC, Smarr KL, Hewett JE, GE, Slaughter JR,

SE.

Harry S Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital, Columbia, Missouri.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the level of anxiety experienced by individuals

with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: Data from 2 previous studies

were used to compare the level of anxiety (measured by the State-Trait

Anxiety Inventory) in the following 4 subgroups: a general RA sample, a

general osteoarthritis sample, a sample with both RA and major

depression, and a normative sample of age-equivalent, working adults.

Canonical correlations were used to examine associations between

measures of anxiety and measures of both stress and depression. The

relationship between anxiety and duration of RA was also explored.

RESULTS: The general RA sample had state anxiety levels that were

comparable to the normative sample, although trait anxiety levels were

significantly higher (P < 0.001). In addition, individuals with RA who

also met criteria for depression exhibited significantly higher levels

of both state anxiety (P < 0.0001) and trait anxiety (P < 0.0001) than

was observed in the normative sample. Canonical correlations revealed

that measures of anxiety were correlated with both measures of

depression (r = 0.83) and measures of stress (r = 0.50). Anxiety was not

found to be significantly related to RA disease duration.

CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrated that individuals with RA,

especially if concomitantly depressed, tend to exhibit levels of anxiety

that are generally higher than a normative group of age-equivalent,

working adults. The substantial canonical correlations between anxiety

and both depression and stress revealed that anxiety shares variance

with these more frequently studied variables in RA. However, anxiety was

not found to be related to RA disease duration.

PMID: 15188326

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