CORRELATES OF SELF-REPORTED ARTHRITIS IN ADULT PAKISTANI POPULATION
Abstract
Osteoarthritis is a common joint disease with highmorbidity and adverse economic impact on societies1.The most common risk factors include age andobesity2. To describe, age gender, literacy andresidency status associated with self reported arthritisin adults and its prevalence in Pakistan, we used datafrom the National Health Survey of Pakistan (NHSP)1990-94; with written permission from the federalMinistry of Health, Islamabad. We selected all theadults aged 26 and above who responded to thequestion “Have you ever had Arthritis?” individualsresponding affirmatively to this question wereidentified as having arthritis. A two-stage stratifiedsample design was adopted for NHSP3. Design-basedanalysis with SUDAAN 9.01 was done usingLogistic regression, Odds Ratios (OR) werecomputed for the association of arthritis with variousdemographic variables.The overall prevalence of arthritis 39%, and95% Confidence Interval (CI) was 34%, 43% (n =5851). In males arthritis prevalence was 30% 95% CI25%, 34%, while prevalence in females was 47% CI41%, 53%. Adults with arthritis were more likely tobe in the age group of 41 to 55 years (OR 1.58, 95%CI 1.37, 1.82), and 56 years and above group (OR1.84, 95% CI 1.60, 2.1) compared to 26-40 year agegroup. Males were almost half as likely to reportarthritis compared to females (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.40,0.66). Arthritic adults were more likely to be ruraldwellers (OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.12, 2.08) compared tourban dwellers, and compared to literate adults(defined as being able to read and write) adults whowere not literate were more likely to report arthritis(OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.41, 2.12). While compared tosingle adults, married adults were more likely toreport arthritis (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.36, 2.28), nostatistically significant association was foundbetween reporting arthritis and being in the othercategory comprising of divorced, widowed andseparated adults. Results of Hosmer-Lemeshowgoodness-of-fit tests using Wald F and Chi-Squareconclude that the model was a good fit for the data.The results of this unique survey,demonstrate that rural women above the age of 40years were most likely to report arthritis; healtheducation efforts at early diagnosis and treatmentwould be particularly beneficial for this group.References
Buckwalter JA, Saltzman C, Brown T. The
impact of osteoarthritis: implications for
research. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2004
Oct;(427 Suppl):S6-15.
Sowers M: Epidemiology of risk factors for
osteoarthritis: systemic factors.
Curr Opin Rheumatol 2001, 13:447-451.
National Health Survey of Pakistan: Health
profile of the People of Pakistan, 1990-94.
Islamabad, Pakistan: Pakistan Medical
Research Council; 1998.
Issue
Section
License
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad is an OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL which means that all content is FREELY available without charge to all users whether registered with the journal or not. The work published by J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad is licensed and distributed under the creative commons License CC BY ND Attribution-NoDerivs. Material printed in this journal is OPEN to access, and are FREE for use in academic and research work with proper citation. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. The Editorial Board of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of material printed in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not reflect the opinion/policy of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad or the Editorial Board.
USERS are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
AUTHORS retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means including twitter, scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.eu, and social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and any other professional or academic networking site.