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.