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Psoriatic arthritis linked with clinical, economic burden, data reveal

Thursday, October 29 2009 | Comments

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Despite current treatment options, patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) exhibit increased rates of comorbidities, reduced quality of life (QoL), heavy medical resource use, decreased work productivity and impaired activity relative to subjects without PsA, new research shows.

Investigators used patient-reported data from the 2008 National Health and Wellness Survey to evaluate 413 individuals with PsA and 62,587 individuals with no diagnosis of PsA. Approximately half of the patients with PsA had moderate disease.

As compared with patients with no PsA, patients with a PsA diagnosis had higher comorbidity rates. Approximately 50 percent of the respondents with PsA had a body mass index of at least 30 kg/m2 and reported sleep difficulty, compared with 35 percent and 31 percent, respectively, of the non-PsA group. Forty-five percent of the respondents with PsA had hypertension compared with 29 percent of the non-PsA group.

Fifty-seven percent of the patients with PsA used prescription therapies. During the previous six months, 94 percent of those diagnosed with PsA compared with 77 percent of the non-PsA group visited a health care provider (mean visits, 9.4 vs. 4.1). More of the patients with PsA visited the emergency department (31 percent) and were hospitalized (24 percent) as compared with the patients without a PsA diagnosis (14 percent and 8 percent, respectively).

The PsA group recorded greater absenteeism and presenteeism. On average, the survey participants with PsA reported a work productivity loss of 42.9 percent and activity impairment of 54.1 percent, as measured by the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment scale. In the non-PsA group, the respective proportions were 18.8 percent and 25.7 percent.

According to results from the physical and mental component summaries of the Health Survey Short Form, the patients with PsA had a diminished QoL.

The study was presented in San Antonio at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 2009 Educational Conference.

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