OBJECTIVES: To investigate the impact that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has on patients’ ability to work and stay in work, using data on Spanish patients from the Burden of Rheumatoid Arthritis across Europe: a Socioeconomic Survey (BRASS).

METHODS: Data were extracted from BRASS, a societal perspective observational RA dataset across 10 European countries (EU5, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Poland and Romania). In Spain, 93 RA specialising clinicians provided information on 911 adult patients; of these, 529 patients completed corresponding questionnaires about the burden of RA.

Descriptive analysis explored association between disease duration, disease activity and degree of work impairment and early retirement. Multiple regression evaluated the impact disease duration has on likelihood to retire early, work impairment was further explored modelling disease duration and severity. The average marginal effect was calculated from regression outputs. Both analyses were adjusted for covariates age, gender and BMI.

RESULTS: The likelihood a patient retired early due to RA was greater in patients with greater duration of disease with age held constant (odds ratio of 1.065 (p-value <0.001) in 189 patients). The predicted probability of early retirement due to RA after disease duration 1-5, 6-10, >10 years was 9.8%, 13.2%, 24.7% respectively.

Analysis indicated with greater levels of pain and/or disease activity, patients suffered increased levels of work and activity impairment. Pain level and DAS28-CRP score independently had an association with work impairment; a unit increase in DAS28 score meant an increase in work impairment of 7.1% (p=0.022, n=70), whereas existence of ‘mild’, ‘moderate/severe pain’ versus ‘no pain’ increased impairment by 20.4% and 38.7% respectively (p<0.05, n=70), with confounders age, gender, BMI and either DAS28-CRP or pain level held constant.

CONCLUSIONS: Analysis suggests both disease severity and pain have an impact on a patient’s ability to work, while duration increases likelihood of early retirement due to RA.