Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Prevalence of Anxiety, Depression, Stress and Pain

Introduction: In present study, we aimed to measure the prevalence of anxiety, depression stress and pain in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Materials& Methods: Present cross sectional study was conducted at the department of psychiatry of a tertiary care centre. A total of 50 consecutive patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus as per International Classification of Diseases Diagnostic Criteria for Research were selected for the study. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was used to assess level of depression, anxiety and stress while VAS scale was used to assess pain among cases. Data was analysed using SPSS ver.21.0. Results: Moderate or severe depressive symptoms were very prevalent in the study population, with 37.5 % of subjects of RA and 80 % of subjects of SLE being suffering from depression. A total of 52.5 % of the patients of rheumatoid arthritis and 60 % of the patients of SLE had symptoms of anxiety. Stress was observed in 45 % patients of RA and 80 % patients of SLE. A total of 40 % of the patients of both RA and SLE reported suffering from moderate amount of pain, 27 % of RA patients and 20 % of SLE patients reported severe pain in the study. It was also observed that various psychiatric co-morbidities were significantly correlated with each other i. e. depression, anxiety, stress and pain with each adding to the presence of other. Conclusion: Depression, Anxiety, psychological stress and mood status are independent factors in patients with RA and SLE. These factors need to be considered, particularly in patients who are resistant to different treatment regimens and in whom any reason for disease flare is not obvious. Higher pain levels was associated with moderate or severe depressive symptoms. Furthermore, those patients with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were more likely to have arthritis compared with those with no or mild depressive symptoms.