Aesthetic discomfort in hand osteoarthritis: results from the LIège Hand Osteoarthritis Cohort (LIHOC)

The primary complaint of patients with hand osteoarthritis (OA) is frequently the inelegant appearance of their hands. Only one study has been conducted to assess the magnitude of and identify the determinants of aesthetic discomfort in hand OA. The LIège Hand Osteoarthritis Cohort is a prospective cohort of 203 patients diagnosed with hand OA. At baseline, these patients rated their aesthetic discomfort on a 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS) and used a Likert scale (range 0-7) to quantify the magnitude of their aesthetic damage. The median value of the aesthetic discomfort VAS was 35.0 [interquartile range (Q1-Q3) 6.0-59.0]. The median damage was rated 3.0 (Q1-Q3 1.0-4.0), corresponding to a moderate level. Both were significantly (p