AB0549 NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISEASE IN SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOUS AND PRIMARY SJÖGREN’S SYNDROME: THE ADAPTATION OF A QUESTIONNAIRE
Authors: Inês Rego de Figueiredo, Maria Moraes-Fontes
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2019)

<h3>Background:</h3> Systemic Lupus Erythematous (SLE) and Primary Sjögren Syndrome (pSS) are systemic autoimmune diseases, both associated with neurological and psychiatric manifestations. In SLE there are several questionnaires used for neuropsychiatric screening and evaluation, however for pSS there are no specific tools available. Their development is required in order to standardize symptom assessment and allow for accurate disease prevalence estimation. <h3>Objectives:</h3> The main objective of this project is to assess the prevalence of neurological and psychiatric manifestations in our cohort of SLE and pSS patients through the adaptation to Portuguese of a screening questionnaire developed by Mosca et al 2010(1) and its relationship to quality of life. <h3>Methods:</h3> A cross sectional study was performed by applying a screening questionnaire, adapted from Mosca et al (1), to patients with SLE and pSS. The outcomes were evaluated both as binary (neurologic (ND≥9 pts) and psychiatric (PD≥10 pts) disease versus no disease) and continuous variables (score average) and in relationship to demographic data, disease scores (SLEDAI and SLICC, and ESSDAI and ESSPRI) and a quality of life instrument (VAS score). <h3>Results:</h3> A total of 70 participants (16 pSS and 54 SLE patients) participated in the study. Neurological disease was present in 63% and 48% and psychiatric disease in 25% and 15% of pSS and SLE patients, respectively. There was a statistically significant association between the presence of neurological and psychiatric disease and quality of life (pSS PD 20 vs 75, p-value 0.004; SLE ND 60 vs 80, p-value 0.001 and PD 50 vs 76.5, p-value 0.008). There was a trend for higher ESSPRI scores, with higher psychiatric scores (0.54 Spearman correlation coefficient; p-value=0.03). SLE higher neurological scores correlated with older age (0.34 Spearman correlation coefficient, p-value=0.01). <h3>Conclusion:</h3> The questionnaire yielded a frequency of neurological and psychiatric disease similar to literature, as well as correlation to quality of life. This study represents the first step in the validation process for the Portuguese language but results should be regarded with caution considering this questionnaire was designed for screening and not for diagnosis. <h3>References</h3> [1] - Mosca M, Govoni M, Tomietto P, Aringer M, Boumpas D, Cervera R, et al. The development of a simple questionnaire to screen patients with SLE for the presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in routine clinical practice. Lupus. 2011 <h3>Acknowledgement:</h3> We would like to thank Dr José Miguel Jara, psychiatrist in Hospital Curry Cabral and Dr Manuel Gonçalves Pereira, from the Department of Mental Heatlh, Faculty of Medical Sciences – NOVA University, Lisbon, for help adapting the psychiatric questions. We would like also to thank Professor Brian Claggett for help in statistical issues, as well as the Harvard Medical School Portuguese Clinical Research Training. <h3>Disclosure of Interests:</h3> None declared