Prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthropathy in Brittany, France

Objective. To document the prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spon dyloarthropathy (SpA) in Brittany, France. Methods, (1) Members of rheumatism self-help groups screened cases using qu estionnaires. (2) Rheumatologists in our unit contacted persons who had pos sible inflammatory rheumatic diseases and persons who refused the first int erview. (3) When diagnosis remained unknown or discordant with the question naire, the general practitioner or the rheumatologist of these patients was interviewed. (4) Patients without diagnosis and who had not had a rheumato logical examination were examined without charge by a rheumatologist. Results. An overall prevalence rare of 0.62% (0.33-0.91) and 0.478 (0.22-0. 72) was found for RA and for SpA, respectively. The prevalence of RA and Sp A was 0.86 (0.39-1.33) and 0.53 (0.16-0.9) in women and 0.32 (0.01-0.63) an d 0.41 (0.05-0.77) in men. The minimum prevalence of RA and SpA calculated on the estimated initial group (3189 persons) was 0.53 (0.28-0.78) and 0.41 (0.18-0,63), respectively. Conclusion. Our telephone survey revealed that the prevalences of RA and Sp A are nearly similar among our population and that SpA is as common in wome n as in men.