title: Comparison of the Belgian Rheumatoid Arthritis Disability Assessment and Health Assessment Questionnaires as Tools to Predict the Need for Support Measures in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Scores on the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) predict the need for support measures in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study we compare the performance of the HAQ in this context with that of the more disease-specific Belgian Rheumatoid Arthritis Disability Assessment (BRADA) questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this multicenter observational study, patients with RA and disease duration of at least one year who consulted their rheumatologist for a routine follow-up visit filled out the HAQ, and BRADA questionnaires. The performance of HAQ and BRADA to predict the need for support measures available to patients with RA was evaluated using Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curves, with the expert opinion of the rheumatologist as a reference.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study analyzed data of 301 patients with RA (70.8% females) with mean age 59.8 ± 12.8, disease duration 11.4 ± 9.3 years, and DAS28 values of 2.84 ± 1.18. HAQ scores averaged 0.97 ± 0.73 and BRADA scores were 3.92 ± 3.49 over the last week and 3.89 ± 3.50 over the last 3 months. The area under the ROC curves for the BRADA scores for the support measures investigated ranged from 0.702 to 0.862 and did not differ significantly from those of the HAQ (range 0.725-0.860).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The disease-specific BRADA questionnaire is equivalent to the HAQ in predicting the need for support measures in patients with stable RA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rheumatology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.affiliation: Department of Rheumatology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.|Department of Internal Medicine, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Saskia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Decuman
authors.affiliation: Department of Rheumatology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: De Keyser
mesh_terms: D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000523:psychology*; D001530:Belgium; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires