Analysis of Social and Occupational Background of Patients in the NationalRegister of Rheumatic Diseases

Overview

Introduction .
Rheumatic diseases are among the most frequent causes of morbidity and invalidity.Data on social conditions,educationandoccupation of patients with rheumatic diseases in the CzechRepublic are not known so far.Objectives of project .The objective of the present study was to analyzefamily conditions,education and occupation of patients from the national register of rheumaticdiseases which comprises patients with eight basic rheumatic diseases:rheumatoid arthritis (RA),juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA),reactive arthritis (ReA),psoriatic arthritis (PsA),systemic lupuserythematodes (SLE),systemic scleroderma (SSc),polymyositis,dermatomyositis (PM/DM),mixedconnective tissue disease (MCTD).Patients and methods .Basic demographic and socioeconomicdata of patients with the above diagnoses were assembled by means of questionaires in theout-patient surgeries of the Rheumatological Institute and in the surgeries of 30 field rheumatolo-gists from the entire Czech Republic.In different diagnoses the family status,maximum achievededucation,social status and occupation were recorded.The different parameters were evaluated inabsolute and relative number.Before the analysis was started the register comprised a total of 1178patients.Results .Patients with rheumatic diseases are (except JIA)usually married (range53.2 –78.0 %),the ratio of working people is 12.8 %(JIA)to 70.2 %(ReA),the ratio of partial invaliditiesis 0 %(SSc)to 9.1 %(MCTD),the ratio of invalidities is 2.1 %(ReA)to 36.4 %(MCTD).The ratio ofunemployed in the group was 0 –4.3 %(PM/DM).The proportion of different professions could not bereliably evaluated due to the small numbers in different categories.

Key words:
epidemiology of rheumatic diseases,social and professional background,juvenileidiopathic arthritis,psoriatic arthritis