Introduction:

Depression is significant comorbidity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), with many factors, such as disease activity, pain, and disability determining its development.

Materials and method:

A cross-sectional study including patients with rheumatoid arthritis was conducted to determine prevalence of depression using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and its relationship with disease activity using DAS-28. The HAQ-DI was used to determine functional disability and the number of painful and swollen joints.

Results:

Depression was observed in 42.9% of the patients. An association was found between depression, DAS-28 and HAQ-DI. It was also found that 70% of the patients with high activity disease and 38% of the patients with functional disability had moderate-severe depression. The number of painful and swollen joints was greater in patients with severe depression than in patients with mild depression. Patients with greater depression referred to more intense pain according to the visual analogue pain scale.

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