To explore the effect of assistive devices in improving the quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

A total of 126 patients with rheumatoid arthritis admitted to Shengjing Hospital Affiliated to China Medical University from March 2018 to December 2018 were randomly divided into either a control group (63 cases) to receive routine rheumatoid arthritis treatment alone or an observation group (63 cases) to use assistive devices on the basis of routine rheumatoid arthritis treatment. The t-test was used to compare the quality of life scores in terms of psychological domain, physiological domain, social domain, health self-awareness, general health, and quality of life before and 3 months after intervention and 28-joint disease activity score (DAS-28) between the control and observation groups.

Before intervention, the scores of psychological domain, physiological domain, social domain, health self-awareness, general health status, and quality of life and DAS-28 scores were not statistically significant between the two groups (P>0.05). After 3 months of intervention, the improvement in the scores of psychological domain, physiological domain, social domain, health self-awareness, general health status, and quality of life was significantly better in the observation group than in the control group [(3.72±3.45) vs (1.59±2.29), t=7.618, P=0.001; (6.20±3.90) vs (3.06±4.73), t=8.525, P=0.014; (5.43±2.39) vs (1.21±3.58), t=4.738, P=0.042; (3.55±4.78) vs (0.25±3.49), t=6.346, P=0.021; (5.77±2.24) vs (2.11±1.70), t=9.153, P=0.013]. After 3 months of intervention, the DAS-28 scores of the two groups were significantly lower than those before intervention [control group: (2.12±0.12) vs (4.63±2.01), t=4.325, P=0.037; observation group: (1.10±0.21) vs (4.86±1.98), t=6.565, P=0.012], and the DAS-28 score of the observation group was significantly lower than that of the control group after intervention (t=5.164, P=0.028). The improvement of DAS-28 score before and after intervention in the observation group was greater than that of the control group [(1.10±0.21) vs (2.12±0.12), t=4.271, P=0.043].

Assistive devices can significantly improve the quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and the method is simple and easy.