Health-related quality of life in primary Sjogren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia compared to normal population data using SF-36

Objective: To investigate the health-related quality of life in women with primary Sjogren's syndrome (prim SS) and compare with normative data and th e health-related qualify of life in women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) an d women with fibromyalgia. Methods. A questionnaire including the MOS Short-Form 36 (SF-36) was comple ted by 42 prim SS women, 59 RA women, and 44 women with fibromyalgia. Results: All three patient groups experienced a decreased quality of life l evel ranging from 5 to 65 % in all SF-36 scales compared to normative data. Differences between groups were seen in 7 of the 8 scales (p less than or equal to 0.004). The prim SS patients experienced a higher quality of life level with regard to physical function than the women with RA and fibromyal gia, whereas in the psychological dimensions the quality of life level was comparable to that of the two other groups. Conclusion: The health-related quality of life was significantly decreased as compared to norms in prim SS women and comparable to the levels of women with RA and fibromyalgia.