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Published on: October 13, 2023
The assessment of fatigue in primary Sjögren's syndrome
Christine T T Lwin1, Mark Bishay, Rosmary G Platts
1Department of Rheumatology, Division of Immunity & Infection, The Medical School University of Birmingham, UK.
Objective:
Disabling fatigue is a prominent feature of primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS). We evaluated a number of questionnaires for their ability to discriminate fatigue in PSS from that in other rheumatic disorders and healthy controls.
Methods:
33 female caucasian patients with PSS, 45 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 16 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 30 controls completed self-administered questionnaires including; Visual Analogue Scales (VAS), the Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS), the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) and the Medical Outcomes Short Form 36 Questionnaire (SF-36).
Results:
All patient groups scored significantly worse than controls on the 'Energy' dimension of the NHP, the fatigue VAS and the 'Vitality' domain of the SF-36. No significant differences were observed between PSS patients and controls using the CFS.
Conclusions:
The NHP. VAS and SF-36 are useful in identifying fatigue in these rheumatic disorders. Further work is required to identify the characteristic features of fatigue in these conditions.
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