AB1324-HPR INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL APPEARANCE ANXIETY AND DISEASE DURATION, SELF-ESTEEM, ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION IN RHEUMATOLOGICAL DISEASES-PRELIMINARY STUDY
Authors: S. Y. Cetin, A. Ayan, A. Buyuk, T. Can Akman
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2020)

Background: Appearance anxiety means discomfort in social interactions due to changes in appearance. Also this anxiety; it is the fear of being evaluated negatively and worry about the changes in appearance, and it is not only apparent. Body image is the emotions, thoughts and perceptions of the individual about his or her own body and directly affects self-esteem. The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) was developed to assess social appearance anxiety, and this scale was found to be a valid and reliable scale in scleroderma (SSc) patients. It was also thought to be related to the severity of the disease. The literature shows that appearance concerns are strongly related to depression in patients with rheumatic disease and should be evaluated routinely. Objectives: The first aim of the study is to determine the level of social appearance anxiety in rheumatology patients, and our last goal is to investigation of the relationship between social appearance anxiety and disease duration, self-esteem, depression and anxiety. Methods: 129 rheumatology patients with a mean age of 42.96 ± 11.33 years (51 men, 78 women) were included in the study. 55% of patients were ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 15.5% of patients were sjögren syndrome (SS), 11.6% of patients were rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 7.8% of patients were fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), 6.2% of patients were SSc, 2.3% of patients were Behçet’s disease (BD) and 1.6% were diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) was used to evaluate patients’ social appearance anxiety, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) was used to evaluate self-esteem, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used to evaluate depression and anxiety. Results: The disease duration was found to be 6.82 ± 5.22 years. The SAAS average was found to be 43.23 ± 20.53 points. It was found that the SAAS values of patients with PsA and SSc were higher than patients with AS, RA, FMS, SS, BD. A moderate positive correlation was found between SAAS and disease duration, depression and anxiety (p: 0.048, r: 0.545; p: 0.007, r: 0.638; p: 0.014, r: 0.749, respectively). Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was observed that rheumatology patients had moderate and high level social appearance anxiety. We thought that they have a higher level of social appearance anxiety because of skin involvement in patients with with PsA and SSc. In addition, as a result of the study, we found that as the social appearance anxiety increased, disease duration, depression and anxiety increased. According to this study, in which the preliminary results are given, we thought that it is necessary to determine patients’ appearance anxiety in routine evaluation and to reduce social appearance anxiety by collaboration with multidisciplinary areas in rheumatological diseases. References: [1]Mills SD, Kwakkenbos L, Carrier ME, Gholizadeh S, Fox RS, Jewett LR, Gottesman K, Roesch SC, Thombs BD, Malcarne VL. Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network InvestigatorsValidation of the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis: A Scleroderma Patient-Centered Intervention Network Cohort Study Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) 2018; 70 (10): 1557-1562. [2]Jung J, Lee S-H. Behavior between korean and U.S. women cross-cultural comparisons of appearance selfschema, body image, self-esteem, and dieting. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 2006; 34: 350. [3]Hart TA, Flora DB, Palyo SA, Fresco DM, Holle C, Heimberg RG. Development and examination of the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale. Assessment 2008;15:48–59. [4]Monaghan SM, Sharpe L, Denton F, Levy J, Schrieber L, Sensky T. Relationship Between Appearance and Psychological Distress in Rheumatic Diseases Arthritis Rheum 2007; 57 (2): 303-9 Disclosure of Interests: None declared