Lupus RGMX: Social and Clinical Characteristics and their Contribution to Quality of Life in a Mexican Cohort with SLE

BACKGROUND Although higher prevalence, disease activity, damage accumulation and mortality of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are observed among Latin American, North American admixed population, African descendants and Native Americans, the information about SLE in Latin American countries, such as Mexico, is scarce. OBJECTIVES To present Lupus RGMX, a multidisciplinary effort to generate a national digital patient registry to enrich the understanding of Mexican people with SLE. METHODS Mexican patients with SLE registered between May 2021 and January 2023 in Lupus RGMX were included. Sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and clinical characteristics, along with quality-of-life perception (QoL) were assessed using self-reported data. We compared the QoL obtained from patients with SLE with two groups of non-SLE Mexican subjects. Descriptive statistics, comparisons analyses and a multivariate nonparametric regression model were performed. RESULTS A total of 1172 of lupus patients were included; of which 93.9% were women. The mean age±SD was 36.6±10.7 years, with 37.1% of the individuals between 41 and 50 years. The 24.9% reported a calculated monthly income of 430 USD (8,612 MXN). Lower QoL scores were observed in the SLE group, especially in subjects with lower socioeconomic level. Health perception, QoL perception and socioeconomic status were the variables with greater importance to predict total WHOQoL scores. CONCLUSION The design and implementation of Lupus RGMX imply a pioneering approach to unraveling SLE in Mexicans. Further studies from Lupus RGMX will be focused on enriching the representation of the Mexican population and include other aspects that may allow us to improve our understanding of the disease in our population. ### Competing Interest Statement D.A.R is Scientific advisor for GSK Mexico, not related to this work. The authors declare they do not have any competing nor conflict of interest in connection with this article. ### Funding Statement This project was supported by CONACYT-FORDECYT-PRONACES grant no. [11311] and [6390]. A.M.R. was supported by Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigacion e Innovacion Tecnologica-Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (PAPIIT-UNAM) grant no. IA203021. A.L.H.L. is a doctoral student from Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomedicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and she received fellowship CVU/Becario (711015/790972) from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: This project was reviewed and approved by the Ethics on Research Committee of the Institute of Neurobiology at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors