Table 1.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of the RA patients, mean (95% CI) values at inclusion (incl.)

	Women			Men
	Group 1 Mean (95% CI)	Group 2 Mean (95% CI)	P-Value	Group 1 Mean (95% CI)	Group 2 Mean (95% CI)	P-Value
N	720 (66%)	793 (69%)	0.217	364	358
Age, years	54 (52-55)	57 (56-58)	<0.001	60 (58-61)	61 (59-62)	0.271
Disease duration, months	6.3 (6.1-6.5)	5.8 (5.6-6.0)	0.002	5.9 (5.6-6.2)	5.6 (5.3-5.9)	0.168
Never smoker (%)	49	44	0.033	31	27	0.189
Present Smoker (%)	27	26		30	26
Previous smoker (%)	24	30		39	47
RF pos (%)	57	64	0.011	61	59	0.614
Radiographic changes incl (%)	23	24	0.600	25	25	0.890
DAS28 incl. (0-10)	5.26 (5.17-5.35)	5.42 (5.34-5.51)	0.004	5.00 (4.86-5.12)	5.28 (5.15-5.41)	0.004
DAS28-3 incl. (0-10)	5.21 (5.12-5.30)	5.26 (5.18-5.34)	0.337	4.96 (4.81-5.10)	5.18 (5.06-5.30)	0.045
PatGA incl. (0-100 mm)	46.1 (44.2-48.0)	49.7 (47.9-51.5)	0.004	39.4 (36.9-42.0)	43.6 (40.9-46.4)	0.040
Swollen joints incl. (28)	10.3 (9.8-10.7)	10.3 (9.9-10.7)	0.704	10.6 (9.9-11.3)	11.4 (10.8-12.0)	0.096
Tender joints incl. (28)	8.5 (8.0-9.0)	8.7 (8.3-9.2)	0.454	6.6 (5.9-7.3)	8.2 (7.6-8.9)	0.001
ESR incl. (mm/h)	36.0 (34.1-37.9)	36.7 (35.0-38.5)	0.305	35.9 (33.4-38.5)	35.1 (32.5-37.6)	0.699
HAQ incl. (0-3)	1.06 (1.01-1.10)	1.12 (1.08-1.17)	0.090	0.82 (0.76-0.88)	0.88 (0.81-0.94)	0.221
VAS pain incl. (0-100 mm)	46.3 (44.5-48.1)	50.4 (48.7-52.1)	<0.001	41.8 (39.2-44.3)	44.8 (42.2-47.4)	0.139

RF; rheumatoid factor, DAS; disease activity score, PatGA; patient global assessment, ESR; erythrocyte sedimentation rate, HAQ; health assessment questionnaire, VAS visual analog scale.

P-values denotes the overall significance of differences between groups calculated by Kruskal-Wallis test if continuous or by Chi-square if proportions.