Relationship Of Self-Efficacy And Disability In Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

OBJECTIVES 

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common inflammatory arthritis and a major cause of disability. It is progressive, autoimmune disorder of unknown etiology. Previous studies showed that patient education plays an important role in enhancing self-efficacy which leads to improve health status of RA patients.   As the role of patient self-efficacy in the management of RA is unclear therefore this survey had investigated level of RA patients self-efficacy and disability, also examined relationship of patient self-efficacy with disability, age and disease duration.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 100 RA out-patients using non-probability convenience sampling. Study was conducted from June to November 2017. Those patients who had RA as main disease and were cognitively able to answer the questionnaire were included in the study and those with joint pain other than RA were excluded. Self-efficacy was measured by Arthritis Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES) and disability by Health Assessment Questionnaire. The relationship between ASES and disability, age and disease duration were examined using Spearman’s rho test.

RESULTS

This survey showed that average self-efficacy and moderate to severe disability exist in most of the RA patients. Arthritis self-efficacy was strongly correlated with disability, moderately with disease duration and weakly with age (inverse correlation) whereas disability had direct moderate correlation with age and disease duration.

CONCLUSION

Patient education should be an essential part of a total treatment program of RA so that self-efficacy could be enhanced whereas disability, treatment cost and visits to health care system could be reduced.