The Electronic Psoriasis and Arthritis Screening Questionnaire (ePASQ): A Sensitive and Specific Tool to Diagnose Psoriatic Arthritis Patients

Background: We report on an electronic version of the Psoriatic Arthritis Screening Questionnaire (ePASQ), a sensitive and specific tool for diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in patients with plaque psoriasis. Objective: To validate the ePASQ against the original paper version. Method: The ePASQ scores 15 points on 10 weighted questions and a 68-joint diagram. Data were collected from a prospective cohort of 42 patients with early PsA meeting the Classification Criteria for Psoriatic Arthritis (CASPAR) criteria and from 12 plaque psoriasis patients without PsA. Results: The receiver operating characteristic curves for the ePASQ group yielded an optimal 97.62% sensitivity and 75.00% specificity, for a cutoff score of 7. A cutoff point of 8 yielded 88.10% sensitivity and 75.00% specificity. Concordance of the paper and electronic scores was very high. Conclusion: The ePASQ is a sensitive and specific tool to screen for PsA. The simple electronic administration and automatic scoring minimize clinician involvement and increase the potential for wider distribution.