OBJECTIVES:Over the last few years, in addition to traditional mortality and morbidity indexes, new measuring instruments for assessing state of health have been developed.  One of the applications of these new instruments is the self-assessment, by patients, of their state of health. Quality of life is therefore readily taken into consideration today when assessing state of health, whether in terms of understanding the consequences of a pathology, comparing the impact of alternative strategies, or evaluating the effect of health policies. The 87th of the 110 public health objectives is aimed at “Limiting the disability and improving the quality of life of those suffering from osteoarthritis”Compare the level of quality of life in sufferers of osteoarthritis with that of the population in general and other pathologies.METHODS:In order to evaluate the quality of life of osteoarthritis patients, SF-12 scores were calculated for 301 patients suffering from femorotibial gonarthritis and 1,945 representative subjects of the French population aged 15 and over. The SF-12 score is a generic tool used to assess the physical and mental state of health of populations. The higher the score, the better the quality of life. RESULTS:The average PCS-12 score was considerably lower in osteoarthritis patients (36.08 ± 7.88) compared with that of the population in general (49.87 ± 8.32). MCS-12 scores were similar for both populations (48.88 ± 10.24 and 46.77 ± 9.69 respectively).  There was a strong correlation between PCS-12 scores and those of the Lequesne algofunctional index (p<0.0001), knee pain at rest (p=0.0013) and in activity (p<0.0001). There was a strong correlation between MCS-12 scores and those of the Lequesne index (p<0.003), and at the limitation of the walking perimeter in particular. For comparison purposes, PCS-12 and MCS-12 scores for an American population were 46.47 and 52.99 respectively for hypertension, 40.02 and 51.15 for a cardiac accident, and 44.84 and 52.49 for type II diabetes. Little SF-12 data exists in France. A study carried out in 2002 on the benign hypertrophy of the prostate (BHP) gave PCS-12 and MCS-12 scores of 46 and 47.2 respectively. CONCLUSIONS:These studies confirm the sharp deterioration in the quality of life of patients with gonarthritis, both compared with the population in general and compared with patients affected by other chronic pathologies. Deterioration of the physical dimension was observed, associated with pain and functional disability. The mental dimension of quality of life seemed less affected, and was associated with the limitation of the walking perimeter.  This data confirms the pertinence of the 87th public health objective.            -