The Impact of Illness Perceptions on Health Related Outcomes in Patients With Lupus and Systemic Sclerosis

This research project has the overall objective to investigate the direction of the associations between illness perceptions, their influencing factors and health-related outcomes. Moreover, the investigators want to look at the direction of the associations between illness perceptions and health related outcomes such as psychological and physical functioning in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). The investigators want to know whether the outcome variables anxiety, depression, physical (dis) functioning are influenced by illness perceptions or vice versa. Not only the patients' illness perceptions but also the illness perceptions of the General Practitioners (GP) and rheumatologists will be investigated. The researchers want to know if the doctors' perceptions have an impact on the physical and psychological functioning of the patient or vice versa. Much research in the field of illness perceptions is cross-sectional in nature which means that the direction of the relationships between variables is not known.