Table 2.
The baseline characteristics of the two cohorts based on inclusion before or after publication of the ACR treatment recommendations.
| MTX Monotherapy Users | P value | Multiple Nonbiologic DMARD Users | P value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before N=791 | After N=755 | Before N=841 | After N=770 | |||
| Demographics | ||||||
| Age (mean age, SD) | 64 (14) | 65(14) | 0.12 | 62 (13) | 63 (12) | 0.24 |
| Gender (% female) | 73 | 73 | 0.95 | 79 | 78 | 0.81 |
| Race (% white) | 83 | 86 | 0.09 | 86 | 85 | 0.78 |
| Insurance (%) | ||||||
| Private | 67 | 68 | 0.51 | 68 | 68 | 1.00 |
| Medicare | 53 | 48 | 0.11 | 48 | 50 | 0.42 |
| Medicaid | 6 | 5 | 0.27 | 7 | 5 | 0.06 |
| Clinical | ||||||
| RF Seropositivity (%) | 86 | 88 | 0.67 | 91 | 90 | 0.62 |
| Disease duration (mean years, SD) | 9.6 (9.9) | 8.7 (9.1) | 0.09 | 13.2 (10.4) | 13.6 (10.6) | 0.51 |
| Patient pain score (mean, SD) | 32.8 (23.9) | 32.7 (25.3) | 0.94 | 35.4 (24.5) | 37.6 (25.7) | 0.07 |
| mHAQ (mean, SD) | 0.37 (0.5) | 0.35 (0.4) | 0.35 | 0.42 (0.5) | 0.42 (0.5) | 0.82 |
| Use of prednisone ever (%) | 45 | 45 | 0.92 | 53 | 51 | 0.40 |
| CDAI (mean, SD) | 13.4 (10.5) | 11.5 (9.2) | <0.001 | 12.7 (10.3) | 12.2 (10.1) | 0.27 |
| Disease activity* (%) | <0.001 | 0.37 | ||||
| Low | 52 | 59 | 56 | 58 | ||
| Moderate | 29 | 30 | 29 | 29 | ||
| High | 19 | 12 | 16 | 13 | ||
*
Defined using the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI)