FRI0616-HPR SOCIAL SUPPORT WORKS BETTER IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS THAN FIBROMYALGIA

Background: Social support is defined as a helpful resource that can meet an individual’s urgent needs and is provided by a network of others, such as family members, friends, colleagues and other communities. Perceived social support (PSS) is the subjective support that individuals may experience, emphasizing the individual’s self-understanding, experience and feelings of social support from different sources. Social support directly exerts beneficial effects on the health-related quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia patients. Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare the effect of perceived social support on quality of life of rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia patients. The effect of social support from family, friends and significant others are examined separately. Methods: Fifty-eight patients with rheumatoid arthritis, fifty patients with fibromyalgia and fifty healhy controls were enrolled in the study. Short form 36 (SF-36) was used to determine the quality of life and Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (MSPSS) was used to determine the percieved social support. The effect of three factors in MSPSS (family, friends, significant others) on quality of life of rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia patients were examined seperately. Results: Fibromyalgia patients had lower scores than the rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy controls regarding the physical function, pain, social functioning and mental health subscales of SF-36 (p 0.05). In rheumatoid arthritis patients, MSPSS-friend and MSPSS-significant others scores were positively correlated with all subscales of SF-36. MSPSS-family score was only correlated with pain, social functioning and mental health subscales of SF-36. But in fibromyalgia patients none of the three MSPSS scores had significant correlation with SF-36 subscales (Table-1). Conclusion: Perceived social support especially from friends and significant others, has an important positive effect on the quality of life of rheumatoid arthritis patients. For fibromyalgia patients the effect of perceived social support on quality of life is lower than that is seen in rheumatoid arthritis. References: [1] De Maria M, Vellone E, Durante A, Biagioli V, Matarese M. Psychometric evaluation of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) in people with chronic diseases. Ann Ist Super Sanita 2018; 54(4):308-315. Disclosure of Interests: None declared