Health status assessment in rheumatoid arthritis. I. Further work on the validity of the sickness impact profile.

In a cross-sectional, longitudinal study, 99 women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) completed a well established health status measure, the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP), for diagnosis specific evaluation. Using traditional and self-reporting data, we examined SIP relationships that described physical functioning. They related closely to clinical measures. Psychosocial functioning measured by SIP related specifically to mental health and arthritic pain. Importantly, the SIP was sensitive to 1-year pre and posttreatment changes showing both improvement and deterioration. When applied to patients with RA SIP categories could be more appropriately aggregated, e.g., Home management included in the Physical dimension and Communication omitted from the Psychosocial.