Background and objective: Our goal was to assess expectations, preferences and treatment satisfaction in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with infliximab and their relationship with health related quality of life in real clinical practice.
Patients and method: 198 patients with AR participated in the study who started medication with infliximab at the beginning of the survey. Evaluation of expectations, preferences, satisfaction, health related quality of life, clinic evolution of patients and safety were made 2, 6, and 14 weeks after, coinciding with infliximab transfusions.
Results: More than 85% of the patients preferred to be treated in the hospital. They valued positively to be in contact with other patients, nurses and doctors in order to speak about their illness. Between 70% and 80% of the patients were satisfied with the infliximab treatment. After 2 weeks patients had reduced tender joint count by 70% and swollen joint count by 75%. At the end of the 14th week, 56.6% of the patients matched criteria ACR20, 31.5% ACR50 and 11.3% ACR70. 33.8% of patients had adverse events. The results in the EuroQol-5D indicated that patients improved their punctuations getting closer to those of the general population. Functional capacity of 50% of the patients improved significantly after the first 2 weeks of treatment and after 14 weeks this percentage reached the 70%.
Conclusions: The results demonstrate that patients preferred to be treated in the hospital rather than in their houses. Also, patients reported a high level of satisfaction with infliximab.