Effects of the Disease Characteristics and the Treatment on Psychological Status in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis

Introduction: Various psychiatric disorders, especially depression and anxiety, are seen in 2/3 of the chronic rheumatic diseases with chronic pain. In this study, we aimed to define anxiety and depression rates in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) patients (under treatment) with similar age and gender; to compare the obtained data with each other and healthy control group; and also we aimed to investigate the relationship between human leukocyte antigen B27(HLA-B27) in AS, Rheumatoid Factor (RF) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (anti-CCP) in RA with anxiety and depression. Method: 46 patients with RA, 43 patients with AS and 29 healthy volunteers were evaluated with Beck Depression Inventory (BAI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Participants were also noted for their educational status, occupation status, family history of illness, duration of the disease and their current treatments. Then we compared the obtained data with the healthy control group. SPSS (IBM Corp. Released 2012. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.p=0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used for performing statistical analysis Results: There was no difference between the groups according to age, sex, duration of illness (p=0.104, p=0.767, p=0.377). A significant difference between groups in terms of BAI values were determined (p=0.018). In subgroup analyzes, the median BAI value of AS group was found to be higher than the control group (p=0.020). There were no differences in BAI values between AS and RA groups or between RA and the control groups (p>0.05, p>0.05 respectively). Also, there were no differences between the groups in terms of BDI values (p=0.055). Conclusions: Especially, chronic pain-related diseases are often associated with mental disorders, especially depression and anxiety. As a result, a multidisciplinary approach including psychiatric support should be used when planning treatment for these patients.