Background: Rheumatoid arthritis can have a substantial impact on health related quality of life (HRQL). One of the most widely used tools to measure HRQL is RAND36/SF36, and the short version RAND12/SF12. This is a generic tool, measuring 8 subscales of HRQL (physical function, role physical, bodily pain, global health, vitality social function, role emotional and mental health) on a scale from 0-100 were 100 is the best possible health. These subscales can also be combined to form two summary composite scores, the Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS). Female gender among rheumatoid arthritis patients has been showed to be associated with reduced MCS score [1]. Pregnancy and the postpartum period can be overwhelming for many women, potentially affecting their HRQL and mental health state. Objectives: To describe the Mental Component Summary score (MCS) of RAND12 throughout pregnancy and the first year postpartum in women with RA. Methods: We prospectively collected data on RAND12 in women with RA through the nationwide Norwegian registry on pregnancy and rheumatic diseases (RevNatus) from March 2007- December 2023. All women included were diagnosed with ICD-10 codes M06.0, M05.9 or M05.8. Data from seven time points were retrieved (at pregnancy wish, 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester, and 6 weeks, 6 months and 12 months postpartum). The unweighted RAND-12 MCS score was created by adding the subscale scores for vitality, social functioning, emotional role functioning, and mental health and dividing the sum by 4 [2]. Results: 337 women with 417 pregnancies resulting in live births were included. Mean age at 6 weeks postpartum was 32.6 years (SD 4.6). Mean disease duration was 6.6 years (SD=4.7) Conclusion: Norwegian women with RA seem to have stable and good mental health measured using RAND12 throughout pregnancy and the first year postpartum (MCS range from 67.5 to 72.3). The average RAND12 MCS score for healthy Norwegian women of the same age as the study population is 69.3, thus being comparable to our study population [3,4]. REFERENCES: [1] Andersen, J.R. et al. (2022) 'Correlated physical and mental health composite scores for the RAND-36 and Rand-12 health surveys: Can we keep them simple?', Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 20(1). doi:10.1186/s12955-022-01992-0. [2] Hjermstad, M.J. et al. (1998) 'Using reference data on quality of life—the importance of adjusting for age and gender, exemplified by the EORTC QLQ-C30 (+3)', European Journal of Cancer, 34(9), pp. 1381–1389. doi:10.1016/s0959-8049(98)00136-1. [3] Jacobsen, E.L. et al. (2018) 'Norwegian reference values for the short-form Health Survey 36: Development over time', Quality of Life Research, 27(5), pp. 1201–1212. doi:10.1007/s11136-017-1684-4. [4] Matcham, F. et al. (2014) 'The impact of rheumatoid arthritis on quality-of-life assessed using the SF-36: A systematic review and meta-analysis', Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, 44(2), pp. 123–130. doi:10.1016/j.semarthrit.2014.05.001. Acknowledgements: NIL. Disclosure of Interests: None declared.
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