Patients’ experiences of living with RA after 1-2 years of DMARD treatment

• Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disease with a great impact on all aspects of life. Living with RA affects patients’ health including physical, emotional, psychological, and social aspects. Patients with RA are treated with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and monitored with tight control to achieve low disease activity or remission. Nevertheless, RA can be life-changing when the patients need long-term treatment to control the disease activity. The goal of treatment for patients with chronic diseases such as RA is to achieve optimal health and a life as normal as possible. It is therefore important to gain knowledge about how patients experience everyday life a short period after the initiation of DMARD treatment. Aim: To describe patients’ experiences of living with RA after 1-2 years of DMARD treatment.Methods: The study has a qualitative design with an inductive approach. Focus groups (n=17) and individual (n=5) interviews were conducted with 22 patients with RA. The participants consisted of 15 women and 7 men with a mean age of 57 years and a disease duration of 12-21 months. The participants were treated with conventional or biological DMARDS for 12-20 months. The main questions were: “Can you tell me how RA impacts your daily life?” “Which outcomes of your RA are important to you at this moment?“ The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis and five categories with an overarching theme emerged (Table 1).Results: Patients’ experiences of living with RA after 1-2 years of DMARD treatment lead to new insights into life and were expressed as 1) Surrendering to disease limitations due to being restricted by pain, fatigue, and in function; 2) Adapting to disease limitations by adjusting one´s work balance and one’s social life; 3) Transitioning in self-identity due to disease limitations by not recognising oneself and experiencing a change of bodily appearance and mood; 4) Fighting disease limitations by experiencing joy through exercise, promoting health by exercise and dietary habits, and; 5) Feeling humility despite disease limitations by being grateful for the treatment and seizing the day.Conclusions: Despite the fact that patients have been living with RA and treated with DMARD for 1-2 years, they are still struggling to make everyday life work. Although patients adapt their lives to the new conditions, their lives are affected by symptoms such as fatigue, pain, stiffness, and side effects such as nausea, hair loss, and weight gain. However, patients highlight the positive effects of how exercise influences their health and how living with RA leads to new insights into life.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Experiences

Patients

RA

Information driven care

Informationsdriven vård

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)