Still Disease, Anxiety, and Depression: What’s the Connection?

Patients with active Still disease have greater anxiety and depression compared with patients with inactive disease and healthy control subjects, according to findings of a new study.

“Adult-onset Still’s disease is a systemic inflammatory disorder leading to multiorgan involvement,” the researchers wrote. “We sought to investigate mood status and the health-related quality of life in these patients.”

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The researchers used the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to evaluate mood and the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form-36 to gauge quality of life among 82 patients with adult-onset Still disease and 82 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. Among the patients with adult-onset Still disease, 44 had active disease and 38 were in remission.

Both anxiety scores and depression scores were significantly higher among patients with active Still disease compared with patients in remission. Meanwhile, anxiety and depression scores among patients in remission were significantly higher than the scores among the control subjects.

Being a woman, receving a high dosage of corticosteroids, and having scores higher than 50 on the patient’s global assessment were significantly associated with anxiety, according to the study. Sore throat and scores higher than 50 on the patient’s global assessment were significantly linked with depression. 

Moreover, anxiety and depression negatively affected health-related quality of life among patients.

“Therefore, the evaluation of mental health and health-related quality of life should be included in adult-onset Still’s disease patients’ long-term management,” the researchers concluded.

—Jolynn Tumolo

Reference:

Chi H, Jin H, Wang Z, et al. Anxiety and depression in adult-onset Still’s disease patients and associations with health-related quality of life. Clin Rheumatol. 2020;39(12):3723-3732. doi: 10.1007/s10067-020-05094-4