QUALITY OF LIFE OF PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS IN BULGARIA

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, autoimmune, progressive disease which is leading to serious deterioration in patients quality of life (QoL). The goal of this study is to analyze the health related QoL of patients with RA (n= 63) in Bulgaria and to evaluate the factors that might influence it. The SF-36 questionnaire was applied for assessment of patients' QoL. The number of the patients on biological treatment has increased with approximately 34% for one year which is the highest expansion in comparison to other treatment regimes. The highest costs are in the group of patients who takes biological drug - 1720.84 BGN and 1523.56 BGN, a tear before and at the time of the study, respectively. The average value for QoL for the entire cohort is low - approximately 40 from 100 total scores. Our study confirm that the QoL of patients with RA is not satisfactory. Implementation of the biological therapy could lead to improvement of QoL of the patients, better control of the symptoms and lack of additional medicinal products to relieve the symptoms.