Gender Differential in the Prevalence of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background and ObjectivesRheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an auto-immune disease in which body mistakenly considers some parts of its own system as pathogens and attacks them. Prevalence of approximately 0.75 % in India. About 40 % diseased become work disabled within 5 years from onset of symptoms. The objectives of this paper are (i) to find the positivity rate among clinically suspected cases and (ii) to find out the epidemiological risk factors for it. Method The study is based on 290 clinically suspected RA patients. Cross-sectional study design was used. Clinically suspected cases were referred by different OPDs of Sir Sunderlal Hospital for screening. Blood samples were collected in plain vial from each patient and each sample were tested by the laboratory persons. ResultThe overall prevalence of RA was observed 16.6 % and aged upto 50 years and above 50 years prevalence was 15.4 %, 20.6 % respectively. The odds ratio was 1.426 with 95 % CI (0.709-2.873). The prevalence of this was 12.7 % among male as compared to 18.9 % in female where odds ratio was 1.597 with 95 % CI (0.821-3.103). This prevalence among urban was 13.1 % in comparison of 19.5 % among rural. ConclusionThe finding of this study suggests that the proportion of diseased cases increased as age increases. Females are more prone for this disease as compared to male. The suspected cases having the family history had more chances to become diseased as compared to cases not having the family history of RA. This disease also affects the quality of life, disability increases.