PARIS — Pain is paramount to rheumatoid arthritis patients, according to a European League Against Rheumatism survey of 505 RA patients in 10 European countries. The survey was reported by Dr. Tore K. Kvien at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology.
The finding came from a new measure, the Rheumatoid Arthritis Impact of Disease (RAID) score, created by a EULAR task force to make up for the deficiencies in the current widely used indices of disease activity—for example, the Disease Activity Score—which don't include all of the outcomes patients deem important, such as fatigue, added Dr. Kvien, professor of rheumatology at the University of Oslo and editor of the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.
The RAID score began with a group of 10 patients who developed a list of 17 domains important to patients with RA. This list was trimmed to 7 through a subsequent survey in which 10 patients from each of 10 European countries ranked the 17 domains.
Next, 505 RA patients in 10 countries were asked to rank the relative importance of the seven domains. Pain got 23 points; function, 16; fatigue, 16; emotional well-being, 11; sleep, 11; coping, 11; and physical well-being, 11. The weighted values were unaffected by disease duration or severity level, meaning the weighting system has a desirably high generalizability.
Dr. Kvien then relied upon an extensive review of the psychometric literature and expert opinion to create the RAID questionnaire, which includes rating scales and other assessments addressing each of the seven weighted domains.
The RAID score is currently undergoing a 12-country validation study that will refine the final wording choices. After that, physicians are likely to increasingly encounter RAID as a prespecified end point in clinical trials.