Quality of life in children and adults with Idiopathic juvenile arthritis: cross-sectional study in Brazilian patients

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a chronic rheumatic disease which may persist into adulthood. Pain and joint deformities affect quality of life (QoL). The objective was to study the influence of JIA in QoL of children and adults, comparing the two groups. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of 47 JIA patients (20 children and 27 adults) using the following questionnaires: Juvenile Arthritis Multidimensional Assessment Report (JAMAR), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) in adults and Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire CHAQ) in children. Epidemiological, clinical and treatment data was collected. RESULTS: No differences were found in gender, arthritis subset, presence of uveitis and fever, visual analog scale for pain and duration of morning stiffness. Adult patients required more biologics in the treatment (p=0.02) and had higher age at disease onset than children (p=0.001). About 45% of children and 51.8% of adults complained having pain and 40% of children and 48% of adults were not satisfied with the current status of their disease. CONCLUSION: Children and adult patients with JIA had similar degree of pain, morning stiffness and functional impairment. Functional impairment was considered mild but the level of pain found was higher than in other studies. Almost half of patients were not satisfied with the treatment.