Comparison of Psychological Dimensions in Rural Population with Various Joint Degenerative Arthritis

Abstract

Background & purpose: Osteoarthritis patients often suffer from anxiety which can affect the disease prognosis. This study is aimed at assessing the various psychological dimensions in different joint arthritic subjects of the rural population and find the most common joint arthritis that can lead to anxiety in the rural population. Material and methods: A total of 252 subjects satisfied the inclusion criteria and were recruited for the study after written informed consent and were asked to fill in the Global Plan Scale (GPS) online through Google forms. The “feelings†subscale assesses the patient’s psychological stress due to pain and disease. The psychological dimensions of subsection feelings of GPS were analyzed by one-way ANOVA to assess whether there is a difference on average in the scores among the three groups at a p < 0.05 significant level. Tukey HSD was used for post hoc pair–wise comparisons. Results: One-way ANOVA results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups for fear, level of anxiety, depression, stress, and fatigue. Tukey HSD post hoc comparison revealed that the results were statistically significant for fear (Q = 3.35, p = 0.04), fatigue levels (Q = 3.69, p = 0.02). The Tukey HSD post hoc comparison for levels of anxiety, depression, and stress was not statistically significant. Conclusion: From
this study, we conclude that anxiety, fatigue, and fear are highly prevalent in hip osteoarthritis. Anxiety is associated with all joint osteoarthritis and can result in poor quality of living. We recommend physicians emphasize psychological dimensions and address them at an early stage in order to achieve a better prognosis in degenerative joint diseases.

Keywords: Anxiety, Global pain scale, Osteoarthritis,