Impact of fatigue on health-related quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis.
OBJECTIVE
To multidimensionally assess fatigue in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to evaluate the impact of fatigue on health-related quality of life (HRQOL).


METHODS
The study was conducted in 1999 among 490 RA patients with varying disease duration. Fatigue was measured with the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) and HRQOL with a validated Dutch version of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey. We evaluated the impact of fatigue on HRQOL by multiple linear regression analyses taking into account RA-related pain and depressive symptoms.


RESULTS
Different aspects of fatigue selectively explained different dimensions of HRQOL. The MFI-20 was entered last to the linear regression models, resulting in an additional increase of explained variance of 1% (mental health) to 14% (vitality).


CONCLUSIONS
The multidimensional portrayal of RA-related fatigue can be used to develop intervention strategies targeted to specific aspects of fatigue. Fatigue, supplementary to RA-related pain and depressive symptoms, appears to be a feasible and treatable target in the clinical management of RA to increase HRQOL.
Rupp
Ines
I
Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. i.rupp@amc.uva.nl
Boshuizen
Hendriek C
HC
Jacobi
Catharina E
CE
Dinant
Huibert J
HJ
van den Bos
Geertrudis A M
GA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology; D005221:Fatigue / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000453:epidemiology; D011788:Quality of Life