SYDNEY, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Some 30 percent to 53 percent of women with rheumatic diseases say they felt unattractive due to changes in their appearance, said an Australian study.
Patients with rheumatic disease can experience physical deformities, especially of the hands and feet in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, or skin rashes and lesions and hand deformity in the case of systemic lupus erthyematosus.
Louise Sharpe of the University of Sydney questioned 157 patients with lupus, newly diagnosed RA, or chronic RA about physical-appearance concerns and psychological distress -- depression and anxiety.
All three groups showed increased psychological distress and the lupus patients' health-related quality of life was negatively affected. Also, 53 percent of the lupus patients reported that they felt unattractive because of the disease, compared with 30 percent of those with chronic RA and 34 percent of those with newly diagnosed RA.
"Given that depression has been found to predict future disability, any measure that can be taken to lessen the distressing impact of the disease on mood should be implemented," the authors wrote in Arthritis Care & Research. "Because there is a relationship between appearance concerns and depression, it seems likely that targeting appearance concerns may improve mood."
