title: Impact of fatigue on health-related quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. i.rupp@amc.uva.nl
authors.forename: Ines
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rupp
authors.forename: Hendriek C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Boshuizen
authors.forename: Catharina E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Jacobi
authors.forename: Huibert J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Dinant
authors.forename: Geertrudis A M
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: van den Bos
mesh_terms: 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