A study on characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis patients achieving remission in depression with 6 months of bDMARDs treatment

Objective: To investigate the relationship between baseline factors and depression remission after a 6-month biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) treatment in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.

Methods: The study was conducted in 152 RA patients treated with bDMARDs. The following patient’s characteristics were studied: gender, age, disease duration, baseline prednisolone dosage, and serum matrix metalloproteinase3 (MMP3) levels. For assessment, we used the simple disease activity index (SDAI) for RA disease activity, Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) for activities of daily living (ADL), Short Form-36 for nonspecific health-related quality of life (QOL), and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) scores for the depression status. Depressed remission was clarified using HAM-D ≤7 after 6 months of treatment. The patients were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of depression, and a retrospective study was conducted.

Results: Based on binominal logistic analyses, RA patients’ with depression remission (n=124) compared to those without depression remission (n=28) had a younger age (p=0.0045, odd ratio: 0.94, 95% confidence interval [CI]:0.8-0.98), female sex (p=0.021, odd ratio:0.21, 95% CI:0.054-0.79), and lower HAM-D scores (p=0.0073, odd ratio:0.85, 95% CI:0.76-0.96)

Conclusion: It was proposed that RA patients who are females, younger in age, and have lower depressed scores at baseline can achieve a depression remission status with the bDMARDs treatment.

Cite this article as: Miwa Y, Ikari Y, Husonuma M, Hatano M, Hayashi T, Kasama T, et al. A study on characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis patients achieving remission in depression with 6 months of bDMARDs treatment. Eur J Rheumatol 2018; 5: 111-4.