Do psychological factors have anything to do with rheumatoid arthritis? In other words, if a patient is having a pyschological problems such as a depression or anxiety, would it it mean that she/he will have her/his symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis activated?
This is not an easy question to answer, because we are seeking causality here. Simply put, does psychological factors activated rheumatoid arthritis? We can easily see that psychological factors may co-exist with an active rheumatoid arthritis, but that should not be necessarily mean that the one causes the other or vice versa; it could simply mean that they are there together without any relation.
That is the challenge that Dr. Kojima and the colleagues from the Department of Medicine, Shinshu University, Asahi Japan, want to answer when they did a research on psychosocial factors, disease status, and quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Dr. Kojima and the colleagues studied 120 outpatients with rheumatoid arthritis. The patients were asked to have a series of health examinations and questionnaires. They want to explore whether there is any relationship between the psychosocial and illness factors which in turn would have something to do with the disease status of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Also, they want to know how each factor is associated with the quality of life of those patients.
The study found no significant association between psychosocial factors and disease activity, but yes physical quality of life of the patients depended on current symptoms and their physical functions. To put it in a simple way, may be we can safely say that psychological problems would not cause your rheumatoid arthritis to be activated, but of course the severity of the symptoms and disabilities would compromise your enjoyment of life.
(Source: Journal of Psychosomatic Research, J Psychosom Res 2009 Oct 20; Vol. 67, Issue 5; Page(s) 425-31)
Thursday, October 22, 2009
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