Glucocorticoids (GCs) remain widely used. However, the impact of GCs from the perspective of the patient, rather than of the clinician, remains relatively unexplored. Additionally, no general patient reported outcome measure has been developed to assess the effects of GCs across rheumatological conditions. The aim of this literature review was to identify the adverse effects of systemic GC use that are of importance to patients.
OVID EMBASE, OVID MEDLINE, PsycINFO and CINAHL was searched relating to three concepts: GCs, the patient perspective and adverse effects. A meta-synthesis of the qualitative data was performed separately by two independent researchers before qualitative metasummary was utilized to quantitatively aggregate the findings (combining quantitative and qualitative results), including the derivation of frequency and intensity effect sizes to identify those outcomes most prominently featured across all reviewed articles.
The initial search retrieved 1,356 articles, of which 25 (18 quantitative, 7 qualitative) were deemed suitable for quality assessment and data extraction. Four major themes emerged amongst the 71 discrete outcomes: physical symptoms (44), psychological symptoms (18), effect on participation (6) and contextual factors (3).
Patients with a broad range of inflammatory diseases and demographic features describe key cross-cutting themes in relation to GCs and their impact on health-related quality of life. This work will inform the development of a core domain set for clinical trials involving GCs and a patient reported outcome to measure impact of GCs from the patient's perspective.