Spondyloarthritis(SpA) is an umbrella term for a group of rheumatic diseases. It can manifest with pain and stiffness of the joints, tendons or lower back. Patients who suffer from psoriasis or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at increased risk of developing SpA. In patients with psoriasis this is called psoriatic arthritis and in patients with IBD it is called IBD-related SpA.
In __Part I__ of this thesis the prevalence and impact of SpA in these risk groups is described. We set up the SENSOR study to establish the prevalence of psoriatic arthritis in primary care. A special form of psoriatic arthritis is enthesitis, where the entheses are inflamed. We describe the results of an ultrasound study in enthesitis as well. For IBD-related SpA a systematic review was performed to establish the prevalence. We also looked at the impact of musculoskeletal complaints in patients with IBD.
__Part II__ of this thesis focusses on awareness and screening. SpA should be recognized as early as possible to initiate adequate treatment early on. In order to achieve timely recognition, physicians should be aware of the increased risk in patients with psoriasis and IBD. The AppSpA study describes the current awareness in both general practitioners and patients themselves. Besides awareness, screening could also contribute to early recognition. For psoriatic arthritis multiple screeningtools have been developed. We tested these screeningtools in a primary care setting and compared the different screeningtools with each other
