Background/Purpose: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity measures such as the SLEDAI and BILAG require real time physician and laboratory assessment of patients, making them difficult to use in large, epidemiologic studies. The Systemic Lupus Activity Questionnaire (SLAQ) is a self-administered tool developed specifically for screening purposes and epidemiologic studies, and takes a lupus patient < 5 minutes to complete. While the SLAQ is not intended for clinical management or in lieu of physician assessment for disease management purposes, it has been validated in a large community based cohort in response to other health indices such as SF12 and SF 36.  We assessed correlations between these two self-administered SLE disease measures in a cohort of well characterized SLE patients at a large tertiary care outpatient setting.

Methods: SLE patients from the University of Michigan rheumatology clinics who met 4 or more ACR criteria and age 18 years or older were enrolled. Patients completed SLAQ and LupusQoL questionnaires, as well as sociodemographic data. The total SLAQ score is calculated on a scale of 0-47, with groups of symptoms aggregated and assigned different weights.  LupusQOL consists of 34 items, grouped as 8 domains.  Pearson’s correlation was utilized to assess the strength of associations between overall disease activity and individual QOL domains.

Results: 100 adult SLE patients responded, including 89 females and 11 males.  Mean age was 40 years (sd 13 range 18-71).  Patients were 66% White, 21% Black, 11% Other, 2% not reported.   Mean SLAQ score was 13.3 (SD 9.0, range 0 to 39).  SLAQ score (0-47 scale) was negatively associated with all QOL domains except body image, including physical health, pain, planning, intimate relationships, burden to others, emotional health, and fatigue.   Pearson correlation coefficients ranged between -0.39 and -0.70.

Conclusion: Using lupus-specific self-report measues, increased disease activity (by SLAQ) is associated with reduced QOL (by LupusQOL) in 7 of 8 domains. While QOL measures have been examined more thoroughly in the context of physician-measured disease activity measures, data are needed in relation to patient-reported lupus activity in order to provide the basis for more extensive evaluation of these concepts in the epidemiologic setting.  The total SLAQ score is negatively associated with nearly all domains of the LupusQoL questionnaire, supporting its utility in self-report SLE disease assessment.

---

« Back to 2012 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting

ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/majority-of-lupusqol-domains-are-negatively-correlated-with-systemic-lupus-activity-questionnaire-slaq-score/