Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine
Open Access

Research Article

Prevalence of Anemia and its Association with Parameters of Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients: A Study from the Moroccan Quest - RA Data

¹Department of Rheumatology, University Mohammed V- Souissi, El Ayachi University Hospital, Rabat-Salé, Rabat, Morocco

²Laboratory of Biostatistical, Clinical and Epidemiological Research, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University Mohammed V- Souissi, Rabat, Rabat, Morocco

Corresponding Author:

Tazi lachab Hajar
MD, Department of Rheumatology
El Ayachi University Hospital, Morocco
Tel: 00-212-537-78-29-19/17-14
Fax: 00212537782653
E-mail: hajartazi49@gmail.com

Received date: October 25, 2014, Accepted date: June 23, 2015, Published date: June 26, 2015

Citation: Hajar TL, Rostom S, Hari A, Lahlou R, Bahiri R, etal. (2015) Prevalence of Anemia and its Association with Parameters of Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients: A Study from the Moroccan Quest - RA Data. J Palliat Care Med 5:221. doi:10.4172/2165-7386.1000221

Copyright: © 2015 Hajar TL, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of anemia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and analyze its relationship with parameters of disease activity from the QUEST-RA Moroccan data.
Methods: Moroccan QUEST-RA (Quantitative Standard Monitoring Patients with RA), was inspired from Finnish QUEST-RA and is a national multicentric cross-sectional study of patients with RA (according to the 1987 ACR criteria).
Patients were divided into two groups: a group with anemia and a group without anemia according to the criteria of the World Health Organization. The parameters of disease activity were assessed by patient and physician visual analog scale (VAS: 0-100 mm), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C- Reactive protein (CRP) and DAS-28 ESR (Disease activity score in 28 joints).
Results: 1129 patients with RA were eligible. The mean age of patients was 48.8 ± 12.7 years with female predominance (87.3%). The median disease duration was 6 years (3-12), the mean of DAS28 ESR was 4.94 ± 1.68. The prevalence of anemia was 28.8%. In univariate analysis, there was an association between the presence of anemia, the patient activity assessment, physician activity assessment, ESR, CRP, DAS28 ESR, HAQ. Moreover, there was no association between anemia and the presence of comorbidities (ulcer; myocardial infarction, vascular pathology…). In multivariate analysis, only persisted an association between anemia ESR, CRP and HAQ.
Conclusion: This study suggests that the prevalence of anemia was common and appeared to be independently associated with disease activity. Further studies are needed.

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