To assess the main fears and beliefs of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and their effect on treatment outcomes; METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted in Pubmed/Medline; original articles published up to May 2017, reporting fears and/or beliefs of adult patients with RA were analyzed. Fears and beliefs were collected by two independent researchers and grouped into categories.
Among 474 references identified, 84 were analyzed, corresponding to 24,336 RA patients. Fears were reported in 38.4% of the articles (N = 32/84): most studies described fears related to pharmacological therapy (50.0%, N = 16/32) and fear of disability (28.1%, N = 9/32). Beliefs were reported in 88.0% of articles (N = 74/84) and were found to moderate the patient-perceived impact of RA in 44.6% (N = 33/74), mainly the emotional impact (18.9%, N = 14/74); measures of function, quality of life, fatigue and pain were also found to be affected by patients' beliefs in 8.1% (N = 6/74), 6.8% (N = 5/74), 2.7% (N = 2/74) and 2.7% (N = 2/74) of the articles, respectively. Beliefs about therapy were linked to adherence in 17.6% of articles (N = 13/74) and beliefs about cause of RA predicted coping patterns in 12.2% of publications (N = 9/74). Only 9.5% (N = 8/84) of articles reported fears and/or beliefs of patients living outside Europe and North America: there was only one work which recruited patients in Latin America and no article included patients from Africa.
In RA, patients' beliefs are linked to impact of disease and non-adherence. Further research is needed on fears/ beliefs of patients living outside Europe and North America.