Overall, after adjustment for age, sex, and disease duration, the physical HRQoL, which includes mean physical functioning, role physical, and bodily pain, was similar for patients with RA, PsA, and AS at baseline and was well below the average score of 50 for the general United States population.
On average, physical health function declined by 2.2 points from pre- to immediate post-deployment (t = 6.65, P <.0001), and mental health function declined by 4.0 points (t = 7.11, P <.0001).
Previous studies have shown that persons after knee replacement have an average improvement in physical function not experienced by age and gender matched controls without disease [ 17] and that they experience relative improvements in function compared to matched persons with symptomatic OA [ 10].
On average, pain, social function, and physical function scores tended to worsen in patients with swelling or history of blood transfusion.
Results: The average physical compartment scale of SF-36, including physical functioning; role limitations due to physical health, pain and general health improved from 49 ± 30 in pre-interventional group, to 52 ± 34 in interventional group and to 72 ± 22 in post-interventional group (p < 0.05).
To test these hypotheses, we evaluated the relationship between abuse exposure and physical functioning at baseline, and prospectively evaluated the subsequent rate of decline in physical function over an average of 12 years of follow-up.
The scores from the ten individual questions are then averaged together resulting in a composite physical function score that ranges from 0 to 100, where 100 indicates higher levels of functioning.
It is not clear that higher-than-average levels of physical functioning can be measured with a unidimensional scale; persons who achieve higher-than-average levels of physical functioning may do so in a variety of ways (e.g., running long distances, participating in a variety of exercises, like biking, running, and hiking), rendering the reported data about their performance multidimensional.
