The Validity and Sensitivity of Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Scale on a Different Ethnic Group From Indian Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients
Harpreet SINGH1, Sameer ARORA1, Vikram TANWAR2, Ankit KALRA1, Gagandeep SUKHIJA1, Nikhil GOVIL3
1Department of Rheumatology, Pt. B. D. S. Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, India
2Department of General Medicine, S H K M Government Medical College, Nalhar, India
3Department of General Medicine, K C G M C, Karnal, India
Keywords: Clinical Disease Activity Index, Cronbach’s alpha, disease activity score 28, Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Scale, Spearman’s correlation coefficient
Abstract
Objectives: This study aims to assess pain in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients by using Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Scale (RAPS) and to find its correlation with Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28) and Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI).
Patients and methods: The study included 100 RA patients (23 males, 77 females; mean age 43.22 years; range, 19 to 72 years) who were subjected to RAPS questionnaire for pain assessment and DAS28 and CDAI for disease activity assessment. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was measured to assess the correlation of RAPS with DAS28 and CDAI. Cronbach’s alpha (α) was also measured for each scale to assess reliability.
Results: The study group had a female to male ratio of 3.34:1. Mean values for RAPS, DAS28 and CDAI were 62.91, 5.59, and 25.24, respectively. RAPS was correlated with DAS28 and CDAI with correlation coefficients of 0.811 and 0.770, respectively. Cronbach’s α for RAPS, DAS28 and CDAI were 0.892, 0.814, and 0.833, respectively.
Conclusion: Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Scale had a strong positive correlation with disease activity measures of DAS28 and CDAI. RAPS also showed good correlation with core data set measures hence merits its place in clinical practice.
Citation: Singh H, Arora S, Tanwar V, Kalra A, Sukhija G, Govil N. The Validity and Sensitivity of Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Scale on a Different Ethnic Group From Indian Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients. Arch Rheumatol 2020;35(1):90-96.
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.