Estimation of the prevalence of osteoarthritis in Korean adults based on the data from the fourth Korea national health and nutrition examination survey

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: This study estimated the number of Korean adults with osteoarthritis from a representative sample. METHODS: We analyzed the data from phase 2 of the fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2008 using surveyfreq procedure of the SAS statistical package and estimated the number of Korean adults who reported that they experienced osteoarthritis lasting for three or more months during the past year (chronic patients) or were suffering from osteoarthritis at the time of survey (current patients). RESULTS: It was estimated that there were 3,597,774 (proportion, 9.8%; 95% confidence interval, 3,238,651-3,956,897) chronic patients and 3,916,417 (10.7%; 3,548,768-4,284,066) current patients among 36,744,994 Korean adults aged 20-89 years in 2008. CONCLUSIONS: Further efforts to investigate exact number of Korean adults with osteoarthritis and improve treatment outcomes of osteoarthritis are needed.