Objective To analyze unselected routine care patients with all rheumatic diagnoses for positive anxiety, depression, and/or fibromyalgia screening within a single MDHAQ (multidimensional health assessment questionnaire), and for pain and RAPID3 (routine assessment of patient index data) in patients with positive vs negative screens. Methods Each rheumatology patient with any diagnosis at Rush University is given an MDHAQ at each encounter to provide comprehensive medical history information, completed by most patients in 5-10 minutes and scored by a professional in <30 seconds. Frequencies of positive MDHAQ anxiety, depression, and fibromyalgia screening indices were computed in patients with 15 rheumatic diagnoses in 5 categories: inflammatory, connective tissue, non-inflammatory, bone mineral disorders, and primary fibromyalgia. Median pain 0-10 visual numeric scale (VNS) and 0-30 RAPID3 scores were compared in patients with positive vs negative screens. Results In 1,337 study patients (excluding primary fibromyalgia), 30% had positive screens for anxiety, 24% for depression, and 25% for (non-primary) fibromyalgia, and 44% any of these 3 multimorbidity screens. Positive screens in different rheumatic diagnosis categories ranged from 17%-39% for anxiety, 9%-33% for depression, 7%-31% for (non-primary) fibromyalgia, and 30%-52% for any multimorbidity screen. Median pain was 7.0/10 vs 4.0/10 and median (RAPID3) 17.0/30 vs 8.2/30 in patients with any of 3 positive vs all negative screens (p< 0.001). Conclusion Positive anxiety, depression, and/or fibromyalgia screens in 44% of routine care patients who have significantly higher pain scores agree with extensive research findings, suggesting inclusion of pragmatic screening for clinical decisions at all routine encounters.
Schmukler et al. (Sun,) studied this question.