Estimation of the prevalence of osteoarthritis in Korean adults based on the data from the fourth Korea national health and nutrition examination survey

Jhun, Hyung Joon; Ahn, Kang; Lee, Sang Chul

Clinical Research

General Article

Anesthesia and Pain Medicine 2010;5(3):201-206.
Published online July 31, 2010.

Estimation of the prevalence of osteoarthritis in Korean adults based on the data from the fourth Korea national health and nutrition examination survey

Hyung Joon Jhun, Kang Ahn, Sang Chul Lee

¹Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
²Chronic Pain Management Center, Kangnam Cha Hospital, CHA University, Seoul, Korea.
³Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. sangclee@snu.ac.kr

Abstract

BACKGROUND
This study estimated the number of Korean adults with osteoarthritis from a representative sample.
METHODS
We analyzed the data from phase 2 of the fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2008 using surveyfreq procedure of the SAS statistical package and estimated the number of Korean adults who reported that they experienced osteoarthritis lasting for three or more months during the past year (chronic patients) or were suffering from osteoarthritis at the time of survey (current patients).
RESULTS
It was estimated that there were 3,597,774 (proportion, 9.8%; 95% confidence interval, 3,238,651-3,956,897) chronic patients and 3,916,417 (10.7%; 3,548,768-4,284,066) current patients among 36,744,994 Korean adults aged 20-89 years in 2008.
CONCLUSIONS
Further efforts to investigate exact number of Korean adults with osteoarthritis and improve treatment outcomes of osteoarthritis are needed.

Key Words: Epidemiology, Osteoarthritis, Prevalence