Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are disabling and common chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to evaluate the socio-professional impact of RA and AS.

Methods: Using the Biological National Registry (BINAR) data, which includes ten tunisian rheumatology centers,we identified patients≥18 years with AS and RA according to the ACR and EULAR 2010 criteria(RA) and ASAS 2009 (AS), receiving biotherapy for less than two years.

Results: 298 patients were included in the study. The percentage of patients with RA was 58.7 % and those with AS 41.3%. The sex ratio was 0.6. The average age of the onset of the disease was 49.1 years ± 14.1 years [18–79]. For marital status, 72% were married, single (25%), widowed (2.6%) and divorced (0.4%). 22.4% of patients were illiterate, 32.7 % (primary), 28.3% (secondary) and 16.6% had an university level. For the RA population, a high disease activity (DAS28-ESR >5.1) was detected in 36% of patients, an erosive arthritis in 73.1% and 7.2% had a coxitis. In the AS group, an elevate BASDAI (BASDAI≥4) was detected in 56.9% of patients and 39% had coxitis. All patients have received Biological therapy concomitant with corticosteroids (59.1%), methotrexate (42.6%), salazopirine (20.8%) and leflunomide (4.7%). 54% of patients had a comorbidity, of which 1.7% was depression. More than half of our patients (54.3%) were unemployed, 40 % were professionally active, and 5.7% were retired due to the rheumatic condition. Absence from work was observed in 15.1% of cases with a total duration exceeding three months in 55.5% of cases. 37.9 % of patients were physically active: regularly (9.8%), irregularly (28.1%) and (62.1%) were sedentary. For the functional impact, HAQ score was 1.31± 0.7 for RA and BASFI was 5.2 ± 4.8 for AS. The working abandonment is significantly associated to: marital status (p=0.039), low level of education (p=0.04),depression (p<0.001), high activity of AS (p=0.004) and BASFI>4 (p=0,001).

Conclusion: RA or AS requiring biotherapy have a high socio-economic impact and are responsible for absenteeism at work and even for early working abandonment. Early therapeutic management and a global assessment are essential in order to improve quality of life and working conditions. Longitudinal studies are needed to assess the effect of biological therapy on the socio-professional impact of these chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease.

Disclosure of Interests: None declared