Background:
Inflammatory arthritis impairs participation in societal roles. Role overload arises when thedemands by a given role set exceed the resources; time and energy, to carry out the requiredtasks. The present study examines the association between role overload and disease outcomes inearly inflammatory arthritis (EIA).
Methods:
Patients (n = 104) of 7.61 months mean duration of inflammatory arthritis completed self-reportquestionnaires on sociodemographics, disease characteristics and role overload. Pain wasassessed using the Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) and physical functioning wasmeasured with the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36) physical functioning score.Role overload was measured by the Role Overload Scale. Patients indicated the number of socialroles they occupied from a total of the three typical roles; marital, parental and paid work.
Results:
Participants’ mean age was 56 years and 70.2% were female. Role overload was not correlated tothe number of social roles, however, it was positively associated with pain (p = 0.004) andnegatively associated with physical functioning (p = 0.001). On multivariate analysis, roleoverload was negatively associated with physical functioning after controlling for the relevantsociodemographic variables.
Conclusion:
This study identifies a possible reciprocal relationship between role overload and physicalfunctioning in patients with EIA.