Patients with hand osteoarthritis may report prolonged morning stiffness

This study entitled “Prolonged morning stiffness is common in hand OA and does not preclude a diagnosis of hand osteoarthritis” is researched by Stadt et al. and colleagues.

Symptom of inflammatory arthritis includes prolonged morning stiffness of more than 60 min. However, it has poor discriminative ability. There needs to be more data regarding Knowledge about morning stiffness in OA patients.

Considering this background, researchers studied morning stiffness in patients with hand OA. Using AUSCAN, researchers analysed morning stiffness severity.

The key results of the study are:

• 519 / 538 patients had data regarding the duration of morning stiffness.
• Nearly 17% had prolonged morning stiffness.
• The stiffness severity was mild, intermediate, severe and extreme in 30%, 37%, 18% and 4% of patients.
• Patients with prolonged morning stiffness had more pain and worse physical function. The mental and physical quality of life was reduced.
• These patients also had more severe radiographic diseases.

They wrote, “prolonged morning stiffness is present in roughly one-fifth of patients with a history of hand OA and is tied to more pain, worse physical function and a reduced quality of life.”

This is the first to show the prevalence of prolonged morning stiffness in hand OA and its association with disease characteristics.

The study’s goal was not to show that prolonged morning stiffness should be used as a positive diagnostic criterion. Still, rather one should be careful to use it as a negative criterion, they mentioned.

The study was funded by the Dutch Arthritis Society, as acknowledged.

Further reading:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1063458422009293?via%3Dihub