Perceived Influence of Weather Conditions on Rheumatic Pain in Romania

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyze the perception of the influence of various weather conditions on patients with rheumatic pathology. A group of 394 patients, aged between 39 and 87 years and diagnosed with degenerative rheumatic diseases, were interviewed individually by using a questionnaire created specifically for this study. Further on, to assess the relationship between pain intensity and weather conditions, a frequency analysis based on Pearson’s correlation matrix was employed. The most important results are as follows: the great majority of the participants (more than 75%) believe that their rheumatic pain is definitely or to a great extent influenced by different weather conditions; most of the patients reported intensification of their pain with weather worsening, especially when cloudiness and humidity suddenly increase (83.8% and 82.0%, respectively), air temperature suddenly decreases (81.5%), and in fog or rain conditions (81.2%). In our research, alongside simple meteorological variables, we established that complex weather variables such as atmospheric fronts, in particular, the cold ones and winter anticyclonic conditions, greatly intensify the rheumatic pain, whereas summer anticyclonic conditions usually lead to a decrease in pain severity. In terms of relationships between pain intensity and weather conditions, we found the strongest correlations (ranging between 0.725 and 0.830) when temperature, relative humidity, and cloudiness are constantly high.