Patient Acceptable Symptom State for Burden From Appearance Changes in People With Systemic Sclerosis: A Cross-sectional Survey

Objective People with systemic sclerosis (SSc) often report substantial burden from appearance changes. We aimed to estimate the patient acceptable symptom state (PASS) for burden from appearance changes in people with SSc. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of the SCISCIF II study, a cross-sectional survey of 113 patients with SSc from France enrolled in the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network Cohort. Burden from appearance changes was assessed with a self-administered numeric rating scale (0, no burden to 10, maximal burden). Acceptability of the symptom state was assessed with a specific anchoring question. Participants who answered yes were in the group of patients who considered their symptom state as acceptable. The PASS for the burden from appearance changes was estimated with the 75th percentile method. Results Assessments of burden from appearance changes and answers to the anchoring question were available in 82/113 (73%) participants from the SCISCIF II study. Median age was 55 (IQR 24) years, mean disease duration 9.6 (SD 6.5) years and 32/80 (40%) participants had diffuse cutaneous SSc. The PASS estimate for the burden from appearance changes was 4.8 (95% CI 1.0-7.0) of 10 points. Conclusion Our study provides a PASS estimate for burden from appearance changes. Our estimate could serve as a binary response criterion to assess the efficacy of treatments targeting burden from appearance changes.