Abstract: Objective: To assess the effects of aerobic exercise on self-reported health status in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMbase, CBM, VIP, Wangfang data, CNKI were screened to search randomized controlled trial (RCT) and quasi-randomized control trial involving RA patients who received aerobic exercise as treatment. All the relevant studies published in Chinese or English before July 2015 were included. The meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager Version 5.3. Results: Seven RCTs published in English including 644 RA patients were included, of them 327 patients had aerobic exercise as treatment (intervention group), and 317 patients without aerobic exercise were served as control group. Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index(HAQ-DI) score of intervention group were higher than that of control group [MD=-0.14, 95%CI(-0.23, -0.05), P=0.001], as well as fatigue score [SMD=-0.16, 95%CI(-0.31,-0.01), P=0.04]. Subgroup analysis indicated that short-term intervention (≤16 weeks) of aerobic exercise was more effective than long-term intervention (≥24 weeks) for both HAQ-DI score and fatigue score. There was no significant difference in pain score between the two groups. Conclusions: Aerobic exercise could significantly improve the body function and may have a positive effect on fatigue score in RA, but further high-quality, randomized controlled trials are needed to evaluate its long-term effect.

Key words: Rheumatoid arthritis, Exercise, aerobic, Meta-analysis