Why carry out this study?

Depression and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have a complex bidirectional relationship, and the prevalence of depression is higher among patients with RA than in the general population.

We assessed the prevalence of probable major depressive disorder and/or probable generalized anxiety disorder (pMDD/pGAD) in patients with moderate-to-severe RA who participated in six clinical trials of tofacitinib, and evaluated the efficacy of tofacitinib on RA symptoms by baseline pMDD/pGAD status.

What was learned from the study?

The percentage of patients with pMDD/pGAD reduced from baseline over 1 year of treatment with tofacitinib, and RA efficacy outcomes were generally similar in patients with/without baseline pMDD/pGAD.

These findings suggest that effective treatment of underlying RA may lead to improvements in depression and anxiety; specially designed studies using gold-standard diagnostic tools would be warranted to investigate this further.