ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: There is a wide evidence that Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) as well as Psoriasis (Ps) lead to significant health problems and interfere with the patient quality of life (QoL). Even though a validated questionnaire for Ps is available, no questionnaire for PsA is currently present in literature. The aim of our work has been to confirm the efficacy of our original questionnaire as well as to validate it, through the comparison with other existing recognised and accepted questionnaires, such as MOF-SF36, HAQ, McGill Pain Questionnaire, and Zeung Self-Rating Depression and Anxiety Scales. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We have realized a questionnaire for PsA (Psoriatic Arthritis Impact Questionnaire, PAIP), in terms of psychological and rheumatological evaluation, QoL, social and economic assets. RESULTS: The statistical comparisons between PAIP and the accepted questionnaires (see above) confirm that PAIP is widely validated and represents a useful tool suitable for clinical evaluation and management of patients with PsA. CONCLUSIONS: The indexes of the correlation among the different parts of PAIP and the other questionnaires have shown positive correlations. Moreover, PAIP presents a dedicated unit for the economical and therapeutic parameters, The short time for compilation (15 minutes), the easy of comprehension of the questions, and - above all - the validation of PAIP, make our questionnaire a useful tool, suitable for the clinical management of the patients with PsA.
