Article Text
Abstract
Objectives To update the knowledge on employment and the role of mastery, a personal factor reflecting the level of control over life and disease, among Dutch patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) compared to general population subjects.
Methods Data of persons ≤65 years participating in a Dutch cross-sectional multicentre study on social participation in AS were used. Being employed was the main outcome. Standardised employment ratios (SERs) were calculated using indirect standardisation after adjusting for age, gender and education and repeated after stratification by symptom duration tertiles. Modified Poisson regressions were performed to understand the role of mastery (Pearlin’s scale) independent of sociodemographic and health-related factors.
Results 214 patients and 470 controls (127 (59.3%) and 323 (68.7%) males; mean age 48.3 (SD 10.4) and 39.3 (SD 12.7) years, respectively) completed an online questionnaire. SER (95%CI) in patients was 0.83 (0.69–0.98); 0.84 (0.67–1.04) in males; 0.83 (0.59–1.07) in females. Adjusted absolute employment of patients compared to controls was 69% versus 84%; 73% versus 86% for males; 62% versus 78% for females. In multivariable analyses stratified for patients and controls, mastery was associated with being employed in patients, but only in those with low education. In controls, not mastery but higher education was associated with being employed.
Conclusion Our study reveals that patients suffering from AS compared to population controls are less likely to be employed. Mastery is an important personal factor associated with employment in patients but not in controls. Interventions aimed at improving employment of patients with AS should likely account for mastery.
- ankylosing spondylitis
- spondyloarthritis
- epidemiology
- employment
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors AB designed the study. LH, MvdL, JL, DvdH, FAvG, AS, AB, SvG and CW were involved in data collection and/or data management. CW, LV and AB analysed the data and critically interpreted the results. CW, LV and AB were involved in drafting the manuscript. All authors revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and approved the final manuscript.
Funding This work was supported by AbbVie. AbbVie sponsored data collection but had no role in the study design, analysis or interpretation of the data or the writing of the manuscript. Publication of this article was not contingent on approval by AbbVie.
Competing interests None declared.
Ethics approval The study was approved by the ethical committee of the Maastricht University Medical Center.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.