Study design
This is a cross-sectional, single-centre, no-profit study. Between
January and June 2018, all consecutive adult RA patients according to
the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and/or 2010 ACR/European
League Against Rheumatism classification criteria [17, 18], resident
in Lombardy (North of Italy) with disease duration ≥ 3 months who
referred to the out-patient rheumatology clinics of the Division of
Clinical Rheumatology (Pini Hospital, University of Milan, Italy) were
enrolled. The local ethics committee “Comitato Etico Milano Area 2”
approved this study (approval code 17_2018). An informed written
consent was obtained from all subjects. All patients with overlap
syndromes were excluded. Demographic and clinical data, disease activity
(tender and swollen joint count -TJC and SJC, DAS28-CRP - Disease
Activity Score in 28 joints with C-Reactive Protein and SDAI -
Simplified Disease Activity Index), ongoing treatment, patient’s Global
Health (GH), Physician’s and Patient’s disease activity Global
Assessments (PhGA, PaGA) were collected.