About Psoriasis and PsA
Psoriatic arthritis is a type of inflammatory arthritis that occurs in some people who have the skin condition psoriasis. Around one in every five people with psoriasis will develop psoriatic arthritis but it's not clear why some people with psoriasis develop psoriatic arthritis and others don't. In most people, the arthritis starts after the skin psoriasis but they can start at the same time. Occasionally some people have arthritis first and develop psoriasis later.
It typically causes inflammation in joints making them swollen, painful and stiff and can also affect tendons and the spine causing pain and stiffness. You can find a whole library of FAQs about psoriatic arthritis at Healthpad.
Further information on the condition and support for people diagnosed with PsA can be found at these links:
Links to patient support organisations
- Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Alliance (PAPAA)
- Psoriasis Association
- NHS Choices
- Arthritis Research UK
Looking for information about patients involved in BritPACT?
Patient involvement at BritPACT is key to our mission. We have two patient representatives who sit on the steering committee helping to shape our educational and research aims. Information on our steering committee patient representatives can be found here.
BritPACT recognises the needs of people with Psoriatic Disease and highly values it’s engagement with patients – two of whom have been part of the BritPACT Steering Committee since our launch in 2016. The patient partners take an active role in all our discussions and plans and have presented patient focussed topics at our annual meeting.
In 2018 we will be setting up a sub-group called ‘The BritPACT Patient Communications Group’ (BPPCG). This sub-group will be open to patients interested in helping to share patient experience through BritPACT as ‘Patient Expert Partners’ and those who are unable to commit to be any more active than participating in a quarterly teleconference. To begin with a quarterly BPPCG teleconference would be set up using a doodle poll to establish best choice of dates/times (we propose evenings to enable people who work to join) and these will be co-hosted by our steering committee patient partners. It is proposed that some key points could then be developed as topics/patient presentations for future Annual BritPACT Meetings and that we may be able to bring more patients to those meetings.