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Fatigue Strongly Linked with Pain, More Symptoms
Clin Exp Rheumatol; ePub 2016 Jul 6; Castrejon, et al
Fatigue, common in rheumatic diseases, is strongly associated with higher pain and number of symptoms and the multidimensional health assessment questionnaire (MDHAQ) is a useful tool for assessing fatigue in clinical settings, according to a recent study. Researchers evaluated 612 patients: 173 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 199 with osteoarthritis (OA), 146 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and 94 with fibromyalgia (FM). They found:
• Median fatigue was significantly higher in FM (7) than in RA (4), OA (5), and SLE (5).
• Fatigue was correlated significantly with all other MDHAQ scores, at higher levels in RA and SLE vs OA and FM.
• Fatigue was correlated significantly with overall global status (DOCGL) in RA, OA, SLE, but not FM.
• In multivariate analyses, fatigue scores were explained independently by higher pain and symptom number in RA, lower age and higher symptom number in OA, only higher pain in SLE, and none of the variables in FM.
Castrejon I, Nikiohorou E, Jain R, Huang A, Block JA, Pincus T. Assessment of fatigue in routine care on a Multidimensional Health Assessment Questionnaire (MDHAQ): A cross-sectional study of associations with RAPID3 and other variables in different rheumatic diseases. [Published online ahead of print July 6, 2016]. Clin Exp Rheumatol.