What is the impact of moderate/severe osteoarthritis on patients’ lives? Insights from a Greek cohort (PONOS study)

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) represents a leading cause of disability in the general population, with limited data available from the Greek OA patients. Objectives To evaluate the impact of moderate to severe symptomatic hip/knee OA that is resistant to, cannot tolerate, or is ineligible for paracetamol and/or NSAIDs and/or opioids. Methods A non-interventional, cross-sectional, prospective, epidemiological analysis of data from the medical records of patients with moderate to severe OA, recruited in a single visit from 9 sites in Greece. Outcomes included patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as patient reported outcome measures: the Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS), the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and the EuroQol-5-Dimensions 3-levels questionnaire (EQ-5D-3L). Results A total of 164 patients were included in the analysis. The majority of participants were females (78.7%), and the mean (SD) age was 70.5 (10.2) years. Presence of comorbidities was reported by 87.2% of patients, with hypertension being the most frequently reported (53.7%), followed by dyslipidemia (31.1%), obesity (24.4%) and diabetes mellitus (23.2%). Paracetamol was the most commonly used analgesic treatment (96%), followed by NSAIDs (systemic) (75%), opioids (50%) and locally applied medications (42.7%). Both hip and knee OA patients showed substantial deterioration in health related QoL and health status as reflected by the HOOS/KOOS (most impaired subscale Function in sport and recreation, followed by Hip- or Knee-related QoL), mean (SD) EQ-5D-3L index score of 0.396 (0.319) and a mean (SE) EQ-VAS score of 52.1 (1.9), respectively. Conclusion Our findings confirmed the functional disability and impaired QoL of Greek patients with moderate to severe hip/knee OA, thus emphasizing the need for appropriate intervention to reduce the overall burden of the disease both on patients and on the society.