THE CORRELATES OF HEALTH PERCEPTIONS IN RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS

Objective, Although measures of health perceptions have been routinely incorporated into assessments of individuals with rheumatoid arthriti s (RA), the relationships of other characteristics of these individual s to their health perceptions is not fully understood. We describe the cross sectional associations of sociodemographic, disease, and functi onal status characteristics with perceived health in individuals with RA. Methods, This description was generated through a 2-phase secondar y data analysis using 2 statistical approaches: recursive partitioning of the sample and standard multivariate logistic regression technique s. Results. Both methodological approaches identified education, race, depression, and physical activity as important correlates of self-ass essed health in RA. Each approach, in its own way, also identified an interactive effect between physical activity and education and between depression and race in these models. Conclusion, An individual's soci odemographic, disease, and functional status characteristics form a co mplex model of the correlates of health perceptions of individuals wit h RA.