Dataset Information

Health-related Quality of Life Assessment on 100 Tunisian Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis using the SF-36 Survey.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES: The main objective of the study was to examine the self reported health status in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) compared with the general population and the secondary objective (in the AS group) was to study the association between health status, demographic parameters, and specific disease instruments in AS. METHODS: A cross sectional study of 100 AS patients recruited between 2006 and 2009 at the Department of Rheumatology. Health status was assessed by using the SF-36 health questionnaire in patients with AS. Demographic characteristics and disease-specific instruments were also examined by the questionnaire. A sample of 112 healthy individuals was also surveyed using the SF-36 health questionnaire. RESULTS: This study showed a great impairment in the quality of life of patients with AS involving all scales. All male patients with AS reported significantly impaired health-related quality of life on all items of the SF-36 compared with the general population whereas female patients reported poorer health on three items only, namely physical functioning, general health and bodily pain. Mental health was mostly affected than physical role. The physical role was significantly higher in patients with high education level than in patients with low education level (p=0.01). Physical functioning was better in employed patients. All scales of SF-36 were correlated with BASFI, BASDAI and BAS-G. Only physical functioning and general health were correlated with BASMI. CONCLUSION: Impairment in the quality of life can be significant when suffering from AS, affecting mental health more than physical health. Among disease parameters, functional impairment, disease activity, mobility limitation, and spinal pain were the most associated factors resulting to the deterioration of quality of life.

SUBMITTER: Wafa hamdi

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3517697 | biostudies-other | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) measures are becoming increasingly used in clinical trials as primary outcome measures. Investigators are now asking statisticians for advice on how to analyse studies that have used HRQoL outcomes.HRQoL outcomes, like the SF-36, are usually measured on an ordinal scale. However, most investigators assume that there exists an underlying continuous latent variable that measures HRQoL, and that the actual measured outcomes (the ordered categories), reflect contiguous intervals along this continuum. The ordinal scaling of HRQoL measures means they tend to generate data that have discrete, bounded and skewed distributions. Thus, standard methods of analysis such as the t-test and linear regression that assume Normality and constant variance may not be appropriate. For this reason, conventional statistical advice would suggest that non-parametric methods be used to analyse HRQoL data. The bootstrap is one such computer intensive non-parametric method for analysing data. We used the bootstrap for hypothesis testing and the estimation of standard errors and confidence intervals for parameters, in four datasets (which illustrate the different aspects of study design). We then compared and contrasted the bootstrap with standard methods of analysing HRQoL outcomes. The standard methods included t-tests, linear regression, summary measures and General Linear Models.Overall, in the datasets we studied, using the SF-36 outcome, bootstrap methods produce results similar to conventional statistical methods. This is likely because the t-test and linear regression are robust to the violations of assumptions that HRQoL data are likely to cause (i.e. non-Normality). While particular to our datasets, these findings are likely to generalise to other HRQoL outcomes, which have discrete, bounded and skewed distributions. Future research with other HRQoL outcome measures, interventions and populations, is required to confirm this conclusion.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) begins early in life and often leads to reduced physical function, but less is known about the impacts it has on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The aims of this study were to assess HRQoL using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) in a cohort of patients with AS compared with controls and to examine associations between SF-36 scores and spinal radiographic changes, physical function, disease activity and demographic data overall and stratified by sex. METHODS:A cohort of patients with AS from Western Sweden were assessed using the Modified Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spine Score (mSASSS) with spinal radiographs, clinical examination and questionnaires, including the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score-C-reactive protein (ASDAS-CRP), Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Patient Global (BASG) and SF-36. Each patient's SF-36 results were compared with those of five age-matched and sex-matched persons (n?=?1055) from the SF-36 Swedish normative population database. Associations between SF-36 physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) scores and disease-related and demographic factors were investigated using univariate and multivariable ogistic regression analyses with PCS and MCS below/above their respective median values as dependent variables. RESULTS:A total of 210 patients, age (median, IQR) 49.0 (21.2) years, symptom duration 24.0 (21.0) years, men 57.6% and HLAB27 87.1% were included. Patients with AS scored significantly lower (p?<?0.001) compared to controls in all SF-36 domains and component summaries; PCS 42.4 (14.5) in AS versus 52.4 (11.8) in controls and MCS 47.9 (20.0) in AS versus 54.1 (10.1) in controls. Both men and women scored significantly lower in PCS compared with MCS. Multivariable logistic regression analyses revealed that living without a partner (OR 2.38, 95% CI 1.00-5.67), long symptom duration (year in decade OR 1.66, 95% CI 1.16-2.37), higher BASFI (OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.46-2.70) and ASDAS ??2.1 (OR 3.32, 95% CI 1.45-7.62) were associated with worse PCS, while living without a partner (OR 3.04, 95% CI 1.34-6.91), fatigue (visual analogue scale for global fatigue greater than the median (OR 6.36, 95% CI 3.06-13.19) and ASDAS ??2.1 (OR 2.97, 95% CI 1.41-6.25) with worse MCS. Some differences between sexes were observed in the results. CONCLUSIONS:The patients with AS had significantly lower HRQoL compared with controls. PCS was more affected compared to MCS in both sexes. Both disease-related and demographic factors were associated with HRQoL, partly overlapping for PCS and MCS. Factors associated with HRQoL showed some differences between sexes. By modifying factors, such as ASDAS-CRP and fatigue, HRQoL may potentially be improved. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00858819 . Registered on 9 March 2009. Last updated on 28 May 2015.

Dataset Information

Health-related Quality of Life Assessment on 100 Tunisian Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis using the SF-36 Survey.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets