MedWire News: People who suffer from rheumatic diseases are at greater risk of developing mental health disorders than the general population, researchers have found.

Dr Kristina Sundquist, from the Karolinska Institute in Huddinge, Sweden, and colleagues explain that rheumatic joint and spine diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and ankylosing spondylitis, are long-term conditions that are associated with chronic pain and poor quality of life.

"It is, therefore, likely that these diseases have a negative effect on the mental health of affected individuals and possibly on their risk of hospitalisation for psychiatric disorders," they add.

To investigate, the team studied Swedish population data to identify all individuals diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia and personality disorders, and/or rheumatic diseases between 1973 and 2004.

Analysis revealed that, overall, people with rheumatic diseases had a significantly greater risk of developing mental health disorders than the general population.

Depending on the type of rheumatic disease, men with such disorders were between 1.5 and 2.4 times more likely to develop psychiatric disorders than the general population.

Similarly, women with rheumatic diseases were between 1.4 and 2.2 times more likely to develop mental health conditions than the general population

Writing in the Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr Sundquist and team conclude: "These results show that health care providers who encounter patients with rheumatic diseases should be aware that these patients are more likely to develop severe neuropsychiatric disorders than the general population and that some subgroups seem to be more vulnerable than others."