RESEARCH - Impact of fatigue on health-related quality of life in RA

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Arthritis Rheum. 2004 Aug 15;51(4):578-85.

Impact of fatigue on health-related quality of life in rheumatoid

arthritis.

Rupp I, Boshuizen HC, i CE, Dinant HJ, van den Bos GA.

Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

i.rupp@...

OBJECTIVE: To multidimensionally assess fatigue in rheumatoid arthritis

(RA) and to evaluate the impact of fatigue on health-related quality of

life (HRQOL). METHODS: The study was conducted in 1999 among 490 RA

patients with varying disease duration. Fatigue was measured with the

Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) and HRQOL with a validated

Dutch version of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey. We evaluated the impact

of fatigue on HRQOL by multiple linear regression analyses taking into

account RA-related pain and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Different

aspects of fatigue selectively explained different dimensions of HRQOL.

The MFI-20 was entered last to the linear regression models, resulting

in an additional increase of explained variance of 1% (mental health) to

14% (vitality).

CONCLUSION: The multidimensional portrayal of RA-related fatigue can be

used to develop intervention strategies targeted to specific aspects of

fatigue. Fatigue, supplementary to RA-related pain and depressive

symptoms, appears to be a feasible and treatable target in the clinical

management of RA to increase HRQOL.

PMID: 15334430

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=1\

5334430 & dopt=Abstract

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