Quality of life in fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis patients: Comparison of different scales

Aim of the work: To compare fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in terms of their measured quality of life (QoL). Patients and methods: Fifty-nine FMS patients, 165 OA and 57 with RA were assessed. QoL Short Form (SF) scales, World Health Organization QoL (WHOQoL) Brief and Quick-Dash scales were measured. Covariance analysis was used for group comparisons. Results: The mean age of FMS patients was 40.4 ± 10.9 years; OA was 54.5 ± 15.7 years and RA 46.9 ± 15 years (p < 0.001) mostly were females. The disease duration in FMS was 4 ± 3.6 years; in OA was 6 ± 4.8 years and 5.1 ± 4.3 years in RA. After effects of age, gender and educational level on scores were eliminated, at least one SF scale was found to be significantly higher in FMS and OA in terms of Physical and Role function, General health, Vitality, Social function, Emotional role, mean of Mental health subscale in addition to the physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) summary scales. The Quick-Dash score was higher in the RA group. Physical sub-dimension scores of WHOQoL Brief scale were significantly lower in RA group. In addition, social relations sub-dimension score was found to be higher in OA than RA group. MCS scores of SF-36, SF-12 and SF-6D were found higher than PCS scores in the three diseases. PCS score was found significantly higher only in FMS group. Conclusions: RA patients had worse QoL than FMS and OA according to PCS and MCS. SF-12 and SF-6D can be used instead of SF-36 or WHOQoL Brief scales for faster results. Keywords: SF-36, SF-12, SF-8, SF-6D, Quality of life, Rheumatic disease