Association between Xin An Jian Pitongbi Fang and self-perception of patient with osteoarthritis: A case-control study

This study aims to explore the risk and protective factors of Self-perception of patient (SPP) changes in osteoarthritis (OA) patients, and evaluate the improvement effect of Xin An Jian Pitongbi Fang (XAJPF) on SPP. A case-control study design was adopted to recruit OA patients admitted to the Rheumatology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Chinese Medicine from February 2024 to December 2024. The binary logistics regression model tested by Hosmer Lemeshow was used to evaluate the risk and protective factors of SPP changes in OA patients. We used self comparison before and after and association rule analysis to investigate the impact of XAJPF on SPP in OA patients. Bootstrap test was used to explore the mediating factors of XAJPF on SPP in OA patients. Finally, the impact of different exposure levels of XAJPF on SPP in OA patients was observed through subgroup analysis. A total of 270 OA patients were included in the study, all of whom had symptoms of varying degrees of joint pain and worsening of SPP. The logistics regression analysis results showed that lifestyle habits (smoking/drinking), advanced age, gender (female), weight, elevated inflammation levels (hypersensitive C-reactive protein and interleukin-6), and coagulation and lipid metabolism disorders were risk factors for SPP deterioration, while the use of XAJPF was a protective factor for SPP. After further analysis, it was found that XAJPF treatment can significantly improve the SPP score of OA patients, and there is a strong correlation with the improvement of SPP scores. The mediation analysis results indicate that restoring lipid metabolism and coagulation function are key links for XAJPF to improve SPP. Subgroup analysis results show that the improvement of laboratory indicators in the high exposed group patients treated with XAJPF combined with XAJPF is significantly different from that in the non exposed group and low exposed group (P <.05). The above evidence suggests that persistent joint pain severely affects SPP in OA patients, and XAJPF may help improve SPP in OA patients, which can be considered for inclusion in the clinical treatment plan for OA patients.