Relationships between person and health factors and job characteristics in women with systemic lupus erythematosus

This study compared personal and health factors and job characteristics in persons with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and a healthy control group and examined factors related to job characteristics. Fifteen women with SLE and 15 healthy controls completed a questionnaire regarding current employment, employer restrictions, job environment, type of work, and health factors interfering with work. Personal factors such as demographic information, disease severity, cognition, and degree of brain injury were also assessed. t-tests showed that persons with SLE worked significantly less than healthy controls but there were no significant differences between the groups for types of job or employee restrictions. In the group with SLE, health factors of mobility, dependence, musculoskeletal problems, neurological problems, and fatigue correlated with perceived social (r=0.53 to 0.67) and physical (r=0.56 to 0.87) work environments. None of the measures of cognition, brain injury or disease severity correlated with job characteristics. In the healthy controls, dependence at work correlated with physical environment and fatigue correlated with the social environment of the workplace. The results indicate that even persons with SLE who have mild disease are significantly different from healthy controls and might be at risk for discontinuing working.