Premium
Subjective and Objective Measures of Dryness Symptoms in Primary Sjögren's Syndrome: Capturing the Discrepancy
Author(s) -
Bezzina Oriana M.,
Gallagher Peter,
Mitchell Sheryl,
Bowman Simon J.,
Griffiths Bridget,
Hindmarsh Victoria,
Hargreaves Ben,
Price Elizabeth J.,
Pease Colin T.,
Emery Paul,
Lanyon Peter,
Bombardieri Michele,
Sutcliffe Nurhan,
Pitzalis Costantino,
Hunter John,
Gupta Monica,
McLaren John,
Cooper Anne M.,
Regan Marian,
Giles Ian P.,
Isenberg David A.,
Saravanan Vadivelu,
Coady David,
Dasgupta Bhaskar,
McHugh Neil J.,
YoungMin Steven A.,
Moots Robert J.,
Gendi Nagui,
Akil Mohammed,
MacKay Kirsten,
Ng W. Fai,
Robinson Lucy J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
arthritis care and research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.032
H-Index - 163
eISSN - 2151-4658
pISSN - 2151-464X
DOI - 10.1002/acr.23165
Subject(s) - dryness , dermatology , medicine , psychology , surgery
Objective To develop a novel method for capturing the discrepancy between objective tests and subjective dryness symptoms (a sensitivity scale) and to explore predictors of dryness sensitivity. Methods Archive data from the UK Primary Sjögren's Syndrome Registry (n = 688) were used. Patients were classified on a scale from −5 (stoical) to +5 (sensitive) depending on the degree of discrepancy between their objective and subjective symptoms classes. Sensitivity scores were correlated with demographic variables, disease‐related factors, and symptoms of pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Results Patients were on average relatively stoical for both types of dryness symptoms (mean ± SD ocular dryness −0.42 ± 2.2 and −1.24 ± 1.6 oral dryness). Twenty‐seven percent of patients were classified as sensitive to ocular dryness and 9% to oral dryness. Hierarchical regression analyses identified the strongest predictor of ocular dryness sensitivity to be self‐reported pain and that of oral dryness sensitivity to be self‐reported fatigue. Conclusion Ocular and oral dryness sensitivity can be classified on a continuous scale. The 2 symptom types are predicted by different variables. A large number of factors remain to be explored that may impact symptom sensitivity in primary Sjögrenʼs syndrome, and the proposed method could be used to identify relatively sensitive and stoical patients for future studies.