Session Information
Date: Monday, November 9, 2015
Session Type: ACR Poster Session B
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose:
The impact of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) on paid work is measured on the basis of employed people missing time from work (absenteeism) and reduced performance while at work (presenteeism) which leads to reduced routine working hours through changing or even losing jobs (employment status change). Work loss due to disabling rheumatic conditions is an important medical and social issue and various epidemiological studies explored the impact on the productivity, but there are few studies conducted in Turkey. We planned a non-interventional study on the basis of geo-demographic representation and explored the effects of treatment.
Methods:
In this study work disability and productivity loss was investigated through collecting data on worked hours per week and lost hours per week for paid work and household activity in RA and AS patients treated with anti-TNFs. Work and household productivity was also measured with Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Index (WPAI) scores. A total of 713 patients who were >18 years of age and with proven diagnosis of AS or RA in accordance with ACR and Modified New York Criteria were analysed. Additional parameters of quality of life (QoL) measurements by SF-36 (RA and AS), ASQoL (AS); disease scores by DAS-28 (RA) and BASDAI (AS) and functional assessments by HAQ-DI (RA), BASFI (AS) were evaluated.
Results:
A total of 713 patients enrolled (481 AS, 232 RA patients) where AS patients were younger compared to RA patients (37.6 + 10.0 versus 48.7 + 11.7 years, ns). Absenteeism decreased (14.1 hours to 3.3 hours for RA, 18.9 hours to 6.4 hours for AS patients) during 15 months follow-up and presenteeism increased towards the end of the study (p<0.001). WPAI evaluations also revealed significant decreases in four assessed parameters for RA and AS (p<0.001) except for missed hours in AS patients (p=0.006). During follow-up, both RA and AS patients experienced major and significant improvements in their health and quality of life with anti-TNF treatment combined with DMARDs and with or without NSAIDs. Disease activity scores of DAS-28 and BASDAI were significantly improved (p<0.001). Health related information by means of patient reported outcomes (SF-36 for AS and RA, ASQoL for AS, and HAQ-DI for RA) showed significant improvements in all parameters for both group of patients at 15 months (p<0.001). Disease related functional assessment were evaluated by means of BASFI in AS patients and improvements in all functional disability categories were reported (p<0.001). Treatments were well tolerated, cessation of anti-TNF treatment due to adverse events were infrequent (3.0% in AS and 1.6% in RA patients).
Conclusion:
In this study we have shown that overall work loss was significantly reduced with anti-TNF treatment during the follow-up period along with improvements in disease activity scores, QoL surveys and in disease related functional assessment outcomes.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Ataman S, Kirnap M, Seferoglu B, Altay Z, Rezvani A, Kuru O, Capkin E, Bugdayci ND, Sezer I, CAY HF, Tan A. Improvement in Work and Household Productivity for Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis Treated with Anti-TNFs in Routine Clinical Practice in Turkey [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/improvement-in-work-and-household-productivity-for-patients-with-rheumatoid-arthritis-and-ankylosing-spondylitis-treated-with-anti-tnfs-in-routine-clinical-practice-in-turkey/. Accessed .« Back to 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/improvement-in-work-and-household-productivity-for-patients-with-rheumatoid-arthritis-and-ankylosing-spondylitis-treated-with-anti-tnfs-in-routine-clinical-practice-in-turkey/