Health Assessment Questionnaire disability progression in early rheumatoid arthritis: Systematic review and analysis of two inception cohorts

• Published in: Seminars in arthritis and rheumatism 2014-10, Vol.44 (2), p.131-144
• Main Authors: Norton, Sam, MSc, PhD, Fu, Bo, MSc, PhD, Scott, David L., BSc, MD, FRCP, Deighton, Chris, MD, Symmons, Deborah P.M., MD, FFPH, FRCP, Wailoo, Allan J., MSc, PhD, Tosh, Jonathan, MSc, PhD, Lunt, Mark, MSc, PhD, Davies, Rebecca, MSc, Young, Adam, MD, FRCP, Verstappen, Suzanne M.M, MSc, PhD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antirheumatic Agents - therapeutic use; Arthritis, Rheumatoid - diagnosis; Arthritis, Rheumatoid - drug therapy; Biological Products - therapeutic use; Cohort Studies; Disability Evaluation; Disease Progression; Female; Health Assessment Questionnaire; Humans; Inflammatory polyarthritis; Latent class growth model; Male; Methotrexate - therapeutic use; Middle Aged; Patient Outcome Assessment; Predictors; Prospective Studies; Rheumatoid arthritis; Rheumatology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Systematic review; Treatment Outcome; United Kingdom; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0049-0172; 1532-866X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.semarthrit.2014.05.003

Abstract Objective The Health Assessment Questionnaire is widely used for patients with inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) and its subset, rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, we evaluated the progression of HAQ scores in RA (i) by systematically reviewing the published literature on the methods used to assess changes in functional disability over time and (ii) to study in detail HAQ progression in two large prospective observational studies from the UK. Methods Data from two large inception cohorts, ERAS and NOAR, were studied to determine trajectories of HAQ progression over time by applying latent class growth models (LCGMs) to each dataset separately. Age, sex, baseline DAS28, symptom duration, rheumatoid factor, fulfilment of the 1987 ACR criteria and socio-economic status (SES) were included as potential predictors of HAQ trajectory subgroup membership. Results The literature search identified 49 studies showing that HAQ progression has mainly been based on average changes in the total study population. In the HAQ progression study, a LCGM with four HAQ trajectory subgroups was selected as providing the best fit in both cohorts. In both the cohorts, older age, female sex, longer symptom duration, fulfilment of the 1987 ACR criteria, higher DAS28 and lower SES were associated with increased likelihood of membership of subgroups with worse HAQ progression. Conclusion Four distinct HAQ trajectory subgroups were derived from the ERAS and NOAR cohorts. The fact that the subgroups identified were nearly identical supports their validity. Identifying distinct groups of patients who are at risk of poor functional outcome may help to target therapy to those who are most likely to benefit.