Subjective and Objective Measures of Dryness Symptoms in Primary Sjögren's Syndrome: Capturing the Discrepancy

Oriana M. Bezzina, Peter Gallagher, Sheryl Mitchell, Simon J. Bowman, Bridget Griffiths, Victoria Hindmarsh, Ben Hargreaves, Elizabeth J. Price, Colin T. Pease, Paul Emery, Peter Lanyon, Michele Bombardieri, Nurhan Sutcliffe, Costantino Pitzalis, John Hunter, Monica Gupta, John McLaren, Anne M. Cooper, Marian Regan, Ian P. GilesDavid Isenberg, Vadivelu Saravanan, David Coady, Bhaskar Dasgupta, Neil J. McHugh, Steven A. Young-Min, Robert J. Moots, Nagui Gendi, Mohammed Akil, Kirsten MacKay, W. Fai Ng, Lucy J. Robinson*, Elalaine C. Bacabac, Kuntal Chakravarty, Shamin Lamabadusuriya, Constantino Pitzalis, Rashidat Adeniba, Andrea Richards, Saaeha Rauz, Sue Brailsford, Joanne Logan, Jacqueline Andrews, Alison McManus, Colin Pease, Alison Booth, Theodoros Dimitroulas, Lucy Kadiki, Daljit Kaur, George Kitas, Mark Lloyd, UK Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome Registry

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
127 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Objective: To develop a novel method for capturing the discrepancy between objective tests and subjective dryness symptoms (a sensitivity scale) and to explore predictors of dryness sensitivity. Methods: Archive data from the UK Primary Sjögren's Syndrome Registry (n = 688) were used. Patients were classified on a scale from −5 (stoical) to +5 (sensitive) depending on the degree of discrepancy between their objective and subjective symptoms classes. Sensitivity scores were correlated with demographic variables, disease-related factors, and symptoms of pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Results: Patients were on average relatively stoical for both types of dryness symptoms (mean ± SD ocular dryness −0.42 ± 2.2 and −1.24 ± 1.6 oral dryness). Twenty-seven percent of patients were classified as sensitive to ocular dryness and 9% to oral dryness. Hierarchical regression analyses identified the strongest predictor of ocular dryness sensitivity to be self-reported pain and that of oral dryness sensitivity to be self-reported fatigue. Conclusion: Ocular and oral dryness sensitivity can be classified on a continuous scale. The 2 symptom types are predicted by different variables. A large number of factors remain to be explored that may impact symptom sensitivity in primary Sjögrenʼs syndrome, and the proposed method could be used to identify relatively sensitive and stoical patients for future studies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1714-1723
Number of pages10
JournalArthritis Care and Research
Volume69
Issue number11
Early online date19 Dec 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2017

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Rheumatology

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