Depression and anxiety ‘reduce odds of damping psoriatic arthritis activity’
Patients with psoriatic arthritis who also have depression or anxiety have a markedly lower chance of achieving minimal disease activity compared to others without these mental disorders, researchers say.
Their findings suggest diagnosing and treating depression and anxiety should be an integral part of psoriatic arthritis treatment.
More than 740 patients from the University of Toronto Psoriatic Arthritis Clinic in Canada were followed from 2008-17 — 55% of whom demonstrated sustained minimal disease activity (MDA) at two successive visits during follow-up.
All participants had been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis by a rheumatologist and met the CASPAR (Classification Criteria for Psoriatic Arthritis) criteria, the researchers wrote in Arthritis Care and Research.
