Background SLE has a profound impact on Quality of Life (QoL). In addition to disease activity and damage, other factors such as fatigue, fibromyalgia and psychiatric comorbidities also influence QoL.¹ However, there is lack of data in the form of comprehensive assessment of all these factors in the same cohort.

Objectives To assess the quality of life and its correlates among patients with SLE.

Methods Using a cross-sectional study design, 144 patients with SLE were assessed for disease activity and damage by using SELENA –SLEDAI and SLICC/ACR damage Index (SDI)), depression (by using Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ9), anxiety (by using Generalised Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD7)), fatigue (by using Fatigue severity scale (FSS)) and fibromyalgia (as per using ACR 2010 criteria). QoL was assessed using a generic Qol scale – Short Form 36 (SF-36).2 Statistical analysis was done using STATA version 14.

Results The study sample included 140 females and 4 males. Mean age of the participants was 32.48 (SD-7.26) years and the mean duration of illness was 3.92(SD-3.76) years. The mean SELENA SLEDAI and SDI was 3.42±4.04 and 0.26±0.65 respectively. Prevalence of depression (PHQ9 ≥10) and anxiety (GAD7 ≥10) was 25% and 22.9% respectively. Fatigue (FSS ≥4) was present in 51.4%. Physical domains of SF36 were affected more often than the mental domains, 71.5% of the respondents had scores less than 50 in Physical component Summary (PCS) and 61.1% in Mental Component Summary (MCS) of SF36. No correlation was found between disease activity and damage and various domains of SF36. Depression, anxiety and fatigue had a significant negative correlation with all the domains of SF36 (table 1). On multivariate regression only fatigue was an independent predictor of PCS of QoL.

Conclusions Fatigue, depression and anxiety have a greater influence on QoL in SLE than disease activity and damage. Of these, fatigue appears to be the most important variable which influences QoL.

References [1] Schmeding A, Schneider M. Fatigue, health-related quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes in systemic lupus erythematosus. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol. 2013;27(3):363–375.

[2] Maruish ME (Ed). NEW SF36v2 User Guide, 3rd Edition.; 2011.

Acknowledgements Mr. John Michael Raj, Department of Biostatistics, St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru

Disclosure of Interest None declared