BEHAVIORAL RISK OF FACTOR TYPE “A” AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE DIAGNOSTICS OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS

Diagnosis of immune-mediated rheumatic diseases is a multi-stage and complex process. Many researchers have recognized that rheumatoid arthritis is of a psychosomatic nature. The study of psychosomatic status is a promising direction today in the comprehensive diagnosis of various diseases. This section is multidimensional, which gives the rheumatologist a wide diagnostic field for the search for certain patterns in the development of the disease. Many concepts have been proposed that try to explain the selectivity of damage to organs and systems during periods of psychoemotional stress. It should be noted that this crucial issue of psychosomatic medicine is still unresolved. Some concepts are aimed at the physiological basis of this disease. Others, on the contrary, pay more attention to the psychological approach, losing sight of the physiological foundations of the body laid down by nature. his one-sided approach to the problem under consideration is not permissible, since these systems are interconnected. The unique work of American cardiologists M. Friedman and R. Rosenman made it possible to combine all these factors, adding to his model the functional response of the system to the impact of a specific (psycho-emotional) load. This concept (1959) was developed on the basis of many years of experience working with cardiological patients and called them “a behavioral risk factor for coronary heart disease (type A)”. It has proven its effectiveness and has been successfully applied by a number of domestic and foreign scientists not only on cardiological patients, but also on patients with gastroenterological, psychological and neurological profiles. This work is an attempt to apply this concept to patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

rheumatoid arthritis, behavioral risk factor for coronary heart disease (type “A”), personality traits scales, psychosomatic illness, circulating immune complexes, social status, disability