Rheumatoid arthritis is a severe, painful disease affecting the body and mind alike. Patients have to cope with pain, swelling and disability, due to which the Quality of Life suffers to a large extent. The advent of HAQ (Health Assessment Questionnaire) led to a major shift in the evaluation of patients. HAQ is an instrument which helps in measuring pain and disability in the language best understood by the patient. HAQ reflects the impact of the disease or its therapy on Quality of Life. The Quality of life (QOL) is the core issue and its measurable improvement a therapeutic target. This leads to a better patient care. HAQ is a core set efficacy measure for all drug trials in RA. HAQ has inspired development of several similar generic and specific health and disease assessment instruments. Though modified and translated for use in several parts of the World, its application in the Asian communities remains limited. The source HAQ (Stanford) was found unsuitable for the Indian patients. In 1994, we designed and validated the HAQ for Indian (Asian) use that captures the functional physical disability of our RA patients.

        The basic design (eight principle activity items) and scoring system of CRD HAQ (see below) was similar to that of the source HAQ. Instead of 20 question items in the source HAQ, there were now 23 question items in the CRD HAQ.

The CRD Pune version of modified Stanford HAQ is currently available in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrathi, Tamil, Telgu, Bengali and Malyalam.

WESTERN ONTARIO AND MCMASTER UNIVERSITY OSTEOARTHRITIS INDEX
(WOMAC - copyright number [L-28988/2007])

        Osteoarthritis (OA), a common chronic degenerative disorder, is a widely prevalent chronic cause of significant pain and disability in the middle and late years of life. WOMAC is used to evaluate the impact of disease and therapy on the basic daily functions of living in patients with Osteoarthritis knees & hips.

        WOMAC consists of a total of 24 questions associated with the knee & hip functions which are distributed in three components – Pain, Stiffness and Difficulty.

        The source WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index) was modified for Indian (Asian) use and validated through several steps by consensus.

WOMAC is administered by interview/ self reported in the regional language of the patient.

The CRD Pune version of modified Stanford WOMAC is currently available in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrathi, Tamil, Telgu, Kannada, Panjabi and Urdu.