Objectives: To assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and factors potentially associated with the HRQoL of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients using the Thai EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D), and to analyze the correlation between the EQ-5D scores and the functional ability score of the Thai Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ).

Methods: This cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 221 RA patients aged ≥18 at the rheumatism clinic of Uttaradit Hospital, from July to December 2014. The data collection methods included individual patient interviews and data gathering from patient medical records. The utilized statistical methods included the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The significance level was set at 0.05 for all analyses.

Results: The majority of patients were female (78.3%) with a median (interquartile range, IQR) age of 58.00 (51.5-64.0) years, having been diagnosed with RA for 12-60 months (43.0%), and being in an active disease state (60.6%). Most patients reported some problems in walking (52%) and moderate pain/discomfort (63.8%), with no problem in other EQ-5D dimensions. Their median (IQR) scores for the EQ VAS and EQ-5D utility scores were 70 (50-80) and 0.65 (0.55-0.73) respectively. The disease activity state (active/non-active) was found to be the only significant factor associated with the HRQoL scores. The correlations between the HRQoL scores and HAQ score were statistically significant, with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients of -0.653 (p = 0.01) (EQ-5D utility and HAQ scores) and -0.389 (p = 0.01) (EQ VAS and HAQ scores).

Conclusions: The HRQoL of the RA patients in this study was considered comparable to the norm of the general Thai population, with the disease activity state being the only factor potentially associated with the HRQoL. The scores of the EQ-5D significantly correlated with the HAQ score.