The correlates of health perceptions in rheumatoid arthritis.
OBJECTIVE
Although measures of health perceptions have been routinely incorporated into assessments of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the relationships of other characteristics of these individuals to their health perceptions is not fully understood. We describe the cross sectional associations of sociodemographic, disease, and functional status characteristics with perceived health in individuals with RA.


METHODS
This description was generated through a 2-phase secondary data analysis using 2 statistical approaches: recursive partitioning of the sample and standard multivariate logistic regression techniques.


RESULTS
Both methodological approaches identified education, race, depression, and physical activity as important correlates of self-assessed health in RA. Each approach, in its own way, also identified an interactive effect between physical activity and education and between depression and race in these models.


CONCLUSIONS
An individual's sociodemographic, disease, and functional status characteristics form a complex model of the correlates of health perceptions of individuals with RA.
Guccione
A A
AA
Department of Orthopaedics, Harvard Medical School and Physical Therapy Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.
Anderson
J J
JJ
Anthony
J M
JM
Meenan
R F
RF
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000465:Algorithms; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires