Association between patient-reported outcomes and impairments in work and activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in clinical remission: A retrospective analysis using the IORRA database

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objectives To explore the patient-reported outcomes (PROs) associated with work productivity and activity impairment (WPAI) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in clinical remission. Methods We enrolled patients with RA ≥18 years and with a simplified disease activity index ≤3.3 from the Institute of Rheumatology, Rheumatoid Arthritis data set collected in October 2017. The pain-visual analogue scale, patients’ global assessment visual analogue scale (VAS), Japanese version of the Healthcare Assessment Questionnaire (J-HAQ) Disability Index, and duration of morning joint stiffness were selected as the PROs. To evaluate work productivity and activity, the WPAI for RA instrument (WPAI-RA) was used. To assess the contribution of each PRO to the WPAI-RA score, an analysis of variance model was constructed. Results The mean age of the 2614 patients was 62.4 years; 85.1% were female. Median values of the WPAI-RA score were 1.1% for absenteeism, 6.5% for presenteeism, 7.4% for work impairment, and 10.2% for activity impairment. Morning joint stiffness contributed the most to absenteeism (18.0%), while pain-VAS contributed the most to presenteeism (57.4%), work productivity loss (51.1%), and daily activity impairment (53.7%). J-HAQ was the second most contributing factor to presenteeism (17.4%), work productivity loss (16.3%), and daily activity impairment (26.0%). Conclusions The pain-VAS and J-HAQ highly contributed to WPAI in patients with RA in clinical remission.