Longitudinal Study Investigating the Relationship between Disease Activity and Psychological Status of Patients with Behçet's Disease.

PURPOSE: To compare longitudinal changes in disease activity with quality of life and psychological status in patients with Behçet's disease (BD).

METHODS

Patients attending a National Centre of Excellence for BD over a two-year period had disease activity including clinician and patient perception of disease documented and completed a number of validated quality of life and psychological questionnaires. Some representative case-studies were examined in detail.

RESULTS

102 patients were included. Disease activity weakly correlated with quality of life and psychological health. Clinician and patient perceptions strongly correlated with each other. Case-study analyses showed diverse, and sometimes incongruous, responses between, and in, individual patients.

CONCLUSION

Changes in disease activity account for only a small proportion of changes in psychological status with intra-individual variation playing a large role. There is a complex relationship between psychological status and disease activity that cannot be explained by changes in disease activity alone.