AB0337 ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS USING THE SLEQoL (SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS-SPECIFICQUALITY OF LIFE QUESTIONNAIRE)
Authors: M. Brahem, M. Ardhaoui, S. Arfa, H. Hachfi, B. Ben Rejeb, R. Sarraj, M. Hassayoun, S. Abdellatif, A. Ben Salem, R. Ben Tekaya, O. Berriche, Y. Mohamed
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2021)

Background: Patients withsystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a better survival than decades ago. Nevertheless, they still experience a low health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The Systemic Lupus Erythematosus-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (SLEQoL) is one of the most widely used specific tools for measuring HRQoL in SLE. Objectives: The aim of our study is to assess the impact of the SLE in the HRQoL using the SLEQoL tool. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study during a period of the year 2020, including patients followed in the departments of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology in Mahdia, Tunisia. All patients were diagnosed with SLE based in ACR 1997/SLICC2012. The SLEQoL is composed of 40 items scored from 1 to 7, it includes six HRQoL domains: physical functioning (Items 1 to 6), activities (items 7 to 15), symptoms (items 16 to 23), treatment (items 24 to 27), mood (items 28 to 31) and self-image (items 32 to 40) with higher values corresponding to worse HRQoL. Results: Forty patients were enrolled. The age of the SLE patients (36 females/4 males) ranged from 11 to 87 years. The mean age was 47.75±17.59 years. The mean disease duration was 2.3 ±2.9 years. The mean SLEDAI score was 5.78±4.94. The main target organs involved were cutaneous, musculoskeletal, neurological, pulmonary, cardiovascular and renal in 85%, 82.5%, 32.5%, 17.5%, 15% and 7.5% of cases respectively. The biologic analysis showed the positivity of anti-nuclear antibodies in 97.5% of cases, low serum complement C3 and C4 in 20% and 32.5% of cases respectively. A biological inflammatory syndrome was found in 37.5% of cases and Anemia in 42.5%. 85% of SLE patients were treated by anti-malarial, 62.5% were treated by Glucocorticoids and 5% by Methotrexate. The mean SLEQoL global score was 77.92 ± 34.02 [40-153]. The means of different domains (physical functioning, activities, symptoms, treatment, mood and self-image) were respectively 12.1±6.49 [6-30]; 19.6±10.9 [9-49]; 16.4±8.1 [8-34]; 5.5±2.36 [4-14]; 9.6±5.4 [4-20]; 14.9±7.5 [9-36]. The most severely impacted domains were activities and symptoms. The less affected domains were treatment and mood. The SLEQoL global score was correlated with increased age (p=0.03), longer disease duration (p=0.05), SLEDAI score (p=0.02), visual analog scale of pain (p=0.04), musculoskeletal manifestations (p=0.04), cutaneous manifestations (p=0.05) and pulmonary manifestations (p=0.05). By analyzing biological tests of our patients, we found a correlation between the SLEQoL global score and Erythrocyte sedimentation rate [ESR] (p=0.05), Anemia (p=0.04), low serum complement C3 (p=0.02) and C4 (p=0.003). SLEQoL global score and its six domains were not correlated with gender, educational level nor marital status. Conclusion: Our study showed that HRQoL is impaired in patients with SLE. The most important predictors of low HRQoL were older age, longer disease duration, some clinical manifestations, biological activity disease indicators (ESR, anemia and low complement level) and the SLEDAI score. References: [1]Leong, K. P., Kong, K. O., Thong, B. Y. H., Koh, E. T., Lian, T. Y., Teh, C. L., et al (2005). Development and preliminary validation of a systemic lupus erythematosus-specific quality-of-life instrument (SLEQOL). Rheumatology, 44(10), 1267–1276. Disclosure of Interests: None declared