Balneotherapy and health-related quality of life in individuals with Rheumatoid arthritis: An observational study under real clinical practice conditions

Abstract

Introduction: To analyze the influence of balneotherapy applied under real clinical prac-tice conditions on the quality of life and functionality of patients diagnosed with rheuma-toid arthritis. Methods: Prospective, observational study conducted with a group of pa-tients under real clinical practice conditions, with a 6-month follow-up. The participants were beneficiaries of the social thermalism programme of the Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumption and Social Well-being, aged 60-80 years and diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, who were treated at Fitero’s Spa (Spain). The study excluded those individuals who had undergone another balneotherapeutic treatment in the previous 6 months, and those who had scheduled one in the following 6 months. Ten treatment sessions were ap-plied. Each session included a bath and one or two additional techniques, which varied in each case, depending on the characteristics and preferences of the patient. The variables were gathered before initiating the treatment, and at 1, 3 and 6-months post-treatment. Re-sults: The study included 49 individuals with an average age of 71.0 (SD 4.79) years. The variable “current health state” of EuroQol 5D-5L increased by 6.73 [-13.44 to -2.53] points and 6.26 [-12.07 to -0.46] in the first and third month, respectively. Pain was the dimen-sion in which the largest number of participants reduced the level of their response in all the follow-up periods. Functionality showed an improvement of 0.196 [0.060 to 0.332] in the third month. Conclusions: The beneficial effects of balneotherapy on the health-related quality of life and functionality in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis can be positive.

Keywords

• balneotherapy
• rheumatoid arthritis
• quality of life
• functionality