Burden of rheumatic diseases in a rural community of Bangladesh

Objective: to estimate the magnitude,burden of illness and help-seeking behavior of patients with musculoskeletal complaints and to provide incidence of osteoarthritis,low back pain,fibromyalgia,rheumatoid arthritis,gout,and other inflammatory and non-inflammatory rheumatic diseases in a rural community of bangladesh. methods: the study was conducted in a few villages near dhaka city which were considered to be a fairly representative sample of bangladeshi rural population. data were collected with the help of modified community oriented program for control of rheumatic diseases (copcord) questionnaire and a diagnosis using american college of rheumatology (acr) criteria was established. results: during the 18 months study period,2685 adults (15 years and above) were included. a total of 441 (m=163,f=278) developed new musculoskeletal (msk) pain. the incidence rates were 10.9/100 person-years (py) for the whole population,8.2/100 py for males and 13.6/100 py for females. nonspecific low back pain (nslbp),fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis of knee were common msk problems. a total of 302 patients had complaints of low back pain,of them 204 persons had noninflammatory low back pain; 262 respondents had complaints of knee pain,38 had satisfied the criteria of knee oa; a total of 116 respondents suffered from fibromyalgia during the study period. of the respondents (m=17,f=24) 41 had inflammatory arthropathy. among the incidences of inflammatory arthritis,rheumatoid arthritis 120 (m=101,f=147),spondyloarthropathies 150 (m=252,f=49),ankylosing spondylitis 75 (m=151,f=0),reactive arthritis 50 (m=101,f=0),and psoriatic arthritis 256 (m=0,f=49) per 100,000/py respectively were observed. conclusions: rheumatic diseases are common in the rural community of bangladesh,affecting nearly a quarter of adult population. non-specific low back pain (nslbp),fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis of knee joints are common joint disorders; point prevalence estimates of most common diagnoses were similar to other community surveys using copcord methodology. © 2014,bangladesh society of medicine. all rights reserved.