RESEARCH - Arthritis symptoms worse in African Americans

[Guest guest]

Arthritis symptoms worse in African Americans

Last Updated: 2005-04-29 12:05:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - African Americans with rheumatoid arthritis

report more severe disease and more disability than whites with the disease,

a new study shows.

" Clinicians have to recognize that the severity of disease with rheumatoid

arthritis in our culture in 2005 tends to be worse in African Americans.

First of all we need to recognize that, and second we need to think about

what we can do to improve that, " Dr. Brasington of the Washington

University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the study's lead author, told

Reuters Health.

Given the lower scores on a self sufficiency test among African American

study participants compared with whites, Brasington and his colleagues note,

strategies to improve physical function, such as the Arthritis Foundation's

Arthritis Self Help Course, could be particularly beneficial for these

patients.

Studies have shown that disease activity in patients with lupus and

scleroderma is more severe in African Americans, the researches note in

their report, published in the Journal of Rheumatology. To investigate

whether race might play a role in rheumatoid arthritis severity, they looked

at 100 outpatients with the disease. Thirty-three of the study participants

were African-American and the rest were Caucasian.

The average Health Assessment Questionnaire score for the African Americans

was 1.5, compared to 0.9 for the Caucasians. Mean Disease Activity Scores

were 5.5 for blacks and 4.3 for whites. And pain perception scores and

number of tender joints were nearly double for blacks compared with whites.

The study also found African Americans had more other illnesses than whites

did, were less likely to be taking, or to have taken, disease-modifying

antirheumatic drugs, and had significantly lower self-sufficiency scores.

After adjusting the data for the possible effects of socioeconomic factors,

the researchers found that race was no longer independently associated with

rheumatoid arthritis disease severity.

" The Arthritis Self Help Course is a well-established tool for improving the

outcome of people with arthritis -- it's something that doctors probably

don't emphasize enough because we tend to think about medications and

surgery, " Brasington said.

" We may be able to make a bigger effort to encourage people to engage in

this self-help type of activity, which in arthritis has been shown to be

effective. "

SOURCE: Journal of Rheumatology, April 2005.

Not an MD

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org