Psychological status and disease activity were major predictors of body image disturbances in patients with Sjögren’s syndrome

ABSTRACT

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) often leads to disease-related body defects and functional impairments, which may result in the body image disturbances (BID) of patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the severity and predictors of BID among SS patients. Two hundred and thirty-one SS patients [mean (IQR) age: 51 (42–58); females: 94.4%] and 224 age and sex-matched healthy controls were included in this cross-sectional study. Questionnaires were applied: body image disturbance questionnaire (BIDQ), the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), fatigue severity scale (FSS), the 10-cm pain Visual Analog Scale (VAS), the oral health impact profile-14 (OHIP-14), the ocular surface disease index (OSDI), the social support rate scale (SSRS). Independent sample t-test, Mann–Whitney U-test, Chi-square test, spearman rank correlation, and stepwise linear regression were performed by SPSS version 20.0 to analyze these data. In 231 SS patients, the mean of the overall BIDQ score was 1.80 ± 1.21, and SS patients had significantly higher scores in each domain of BIDQ compared with healthy controls (p < 0.05). The stepwise multiple linear regression analysis revealed that high BIDQ score was predicted by severe anxiety (β = 0.081; p < 0.001), high disease activity (β = 0.038; p < 0.001) and poor oral health (β = 0.017; p = 0.007) in SS patients. Patients with SS suffer from severe BID and it is necessary for rheumatologists to pay more attention to SS patients’ body image disturbance, especially those with high disease activity, severe anxiety, and poor oral health to improve patients’ quality of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Sjögren Syndrome
• body image disturbances
• psychological status
• disease activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (approval number 2017-K003).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 81671616 and 81471603 and 81871278); Science and technology Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant no. BE2018671); The project of ‘333 Natural Science Foundation’ of Jiangsu (Grant no. BRA2016527); Science and technology Project of Nantong City (Grant no. MS12017009-5); Jiangsu Provincial Commission of Health and Family Planning Foundation (Grant no. N2017008);The project of ‘333 Natural Science Foundation’ of Jiangsu [BRA2016527];Science and technology Project of Nantong City [MS12017009-5]; Science and technology Project of Jiangsu Province [BE2018671]; Jiangsu Provincial Commission of Health and Family Planning Foundation [N2017008].