Description

ABSTRACT Chronic pain is a major health concern in India as well as globally due to increase in prevalence rate of chronic pain in recent years with alarming rate. The aetiology of chronic pain involves biological, psychological, social factors which leads to serious implications in various spheres of life of an individual suffering with chronic pain. Despite of multidimensional nature of chronic pain, the contribution of psychological and social factors in pain management is overlooked and is rarely explored by conducting the empirical research studies. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the serious causes of chronic pain in the world with higher prevalence rate mainly among women. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease with unknown causes which is characterized by joint stiffness, severe joint pain. There is no permanent cure for RA at present and is currently managed by mainly using pharmacological treatment. RA has significant impact on an individual's capacity to perform basic daily living activities, professional duties and family responsibilities which ultimately affects mental health of an individual. Depression and anxiety are major mental health concerns among RA patients which are found to be linked with several psychological aspects of an individual. Therefore, considering the role of psychological factors in maintaining wellbeing of an individual with RA, the present research aims to study the effect of pain acceptance and active coping on health-related quality of life and functional status among women with RA. Present study was conducted on the sample of 175 women patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis seeking treatment from two private Rheumatology clinics in Pune. The data for the present study was collected by using purposive sampling method. Mixed method research design was implemented in the present study, wherein first quantitative data was obtained by administering the standardized tools and the qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews and the participants' responses on open-ended question mentioned in personal information form. The tools for obtaining quantitative data included Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ), Vanderbilt Pain Management Inventory (VPMI), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and WHO Quality of life-BREF. Obtained quantitative data was statistically analysed with the help of SPSS Ver.22 by conducting Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis, ChiSquare test of association and simple linear regression analysis to investigate the relationship between pain acceptance and active coping with health-related quality of