Mental disorders (MD), especially depressive, have high rates in rheumatic disorders (RD)–Behçet's Disease (BD) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Depressive and cognitive disorders have close pathogenesis interrelations with RD.

To compare the variants of MD in BD and RA-patients.

Two hundred and twenty-five (100 BD and 125 RA) inpatients were enrolled in the study. In BD patients prevailed men (70%) in RA–women (77%). MD were diagnosed in accordance with the ICD-10 in semi-structured interview. For evaluation of severity and the variants of cognitive disorders psychology and neuropsychological methods were used.

MD were diagnosed in the majority of patients (86%), significantly more often (P<0001) in RA (94%) versus (vs) BD (79%) patients. The depressive disorders dominated (BD–100%, RA–93%). The chronic and recurrent depressive disorders prevailed in both groups : in RA more often than in BD patients (58.4% vs 39.2%, P=0.003). Cognitive disorders of different severity were diagnosed in most patients with BD and RA (73% vs 66.4%, n/s). The mechanical memory (63%) and attention deficit (72%) in BD and impairment of associative memory (90%) and logical thinking (71%) in RA were the most frequent manifestations of cognitive disorders.

The results have shown high rates of MD, especially chronic depression and cognitive disorders in BD and RA patients. The necessity of interdisciplinary strategy implementation for the improvement of individualized treatment approaches in RD has been confirmed.