Sunjoo Boo1, Bomin Choi2

1 College of Nursing·Research Institute of Nursing Science, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea 2 College of Nursing, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea


Background: Despite the fact that disease activity, including blood inflammation level, has been lowered with the recent improvement in rheumatoid arthritis treatment, the number of patients appealing of symptoms, such as fatigue, is maintained at a certain level. Fatigue is the most common subjective symptom of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and a major factor influencing health behavior and quality of life. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the factors affecting fatigue to prepare basic data for the development of interventions to im- prove the quality of life of participants with rheumatoid arthritis.
Methods: Cross-sectional data collected using structured questionnaires and medical record reviews were an- alyzed for 246 rheumatoid arthritis outpatients from a university-affiliated hospital.
Results: Level of fatigue was an average of 4.4 out of 10, and 56.5% was evaluated as a remission level based on the disease activity score 28 (DAS28). Factors significantly affecting fatigue were pain and learned helplessness. Higher levels of pain and learned helplessness were associated with higher levels of fatigue. Conversely, there was no statistically significant difference in the fatigue levels of the participants according to the DAS28, objective disease activity index.
Conclusions: To reduce the fatigue levels of the participants with rheumatoid arthritis, learned helplessness, in- cluding pain control, should be lowered. The participant’s attitude towards the disease should be evaluated and the participants should be actively supported to obtain hope for remission, if clinically encountered with participants.
Korean J Health Promot 2022;22(4):222-228

Keywords: Arthritis, rheumatoid, Fatigue, Helplessness, learned, Pain