Higher pain intensity is associated with less resilience in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

HIGHLIGHTS People who were more resilient had less pain. Less resilient patients had more painful joints. Resilience can help the clinical outcome of the disease. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory, chronic and autoimmune disease that causes joint damage and can lead to physical disability. Patients with chronic and debilitating diseases such as arthritis need to adapt to the new reality. These changes may have less impact on patients with greater self-efficacy and resilience. Psychosocial factors influence the quality of life (QoL) of these patients, so the aim of this study was to assess resilience in this population and its relationship with pain, functional capacity and disease activity. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study carried out with patients at a medical specialties clinic, using a sociodemographic, a clinical-laboratory, a health assessment, a disease activity score questionnaires and the Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale. The data was analyzed using Fisher’s Exact, Chi-square, Student’s t and ANOVA tests. RESULTS: 120 patients participated in the study, 89.2% female, mean age 56.9 ± 10.7 years. Pain was classified as severe by 40.8%, 65.8% had disease in remission and 50.8% had mild disability. The resilience of 49.2% was high. There was an association between lower resilience and: presence of painful joints (p=0.004) and greater pain intensity (p=0.014). There was a lower average of resilience (130.95) in participants with severe disability. CONCLUSION: Patients with less resilient rheumatoid arthritis had greater functional disability, painful joints and greater pain intensity. In addition, from the moment additional measures are adopted, such as educational actions and behavioral strategies, with an emphasis on resilience, which help in the control and clinical outcome of the disease, there will certainly be a positive impact on the quality of life of these patients.