41 (SD 0.5). The mean physicians global assessment and parent global assessment were 1.4 (SD 1.5) and 3.3 (SD 4.5), respectively. An ESR and/or CRP were not available in all patients. Correlations between active joint count, parental global assessment, physician’s global assessment, CHAQ and stress scores Selleckchem HSP inhibitor are shown in Table 3. There was a significant positive correlation (P < 0.01) between parent global assessments and both the child domain and total PSI

scores with Spearman’s correlation co-efficient (rs) of 0.4 and 0.39, respectively. There was also a positive correlation (P < 0.05) between the child domain PSI score and the CHAQ score (rs = 0.31) and the parent global assessment and parent domain PSI score (rs = 0.31). The area of maternal stress in families coping with JIA has been poorly studied to date and most studies have not been able to compare stress levels to those seen in other groups. This study

utilized a validated measure to assess stress in mothers of children with JIA and the results were compared with those reported in similar studies of the this website mothers of children with other chronic illnesses. Manuel et al.[15] looked at maternal psychological symptoms in mothers of children with JIA. They used a number of survey tools to assess maternal stress in mothers of children attending outpatient appointments. The mothers surveyed reported higher levels of psychological symptoms than a normative group. No comparison was made to any chronic illness groups. Lustig et al.[16] also looked at the mental health of mothers of children with JIA. They used the Psychological Symptom Index to assess maternal psychological symptomatology. They found that 53%

of mothers scored in the ‘high’ range of symptoms. They found this to be consistent with findings from mothers whose children had a range of chronic illnesses. However, the studies compared in Lustig et al. did not always use comparative measures of stress levels. The results of this study indicate that stress levels in mothers of children with JIA are higher than those seen in a control group of mothers with children without a chronic illness. Furthermore, Paclitaxel research buy one-third of mothers of children with JIA experience stress at a level where professional help would be recommended. When compared to other chronic conditions, mothers of children with JIA reported higher levels of both parent domain stress and total stress than mothers of children with IDDM and profound deafness. They also had similar levels of stress (in the child domain) to parents of children with cystic fibrosis. These findings are supportive of previous studies that have also shown mothers of children with JIA to have increased levels of psychological stress.[15-17] Interestingly, maternal stress levels of JIA patients were not found to be higher than mothers of children with eczema.[14] The patients in the Faught et al.