Table 1.
Overall patient information and patients’ attitude towards medical care
| Characteristic | Number (% of total) |
|---|---|
| Questionnaires completed | 127 (100%) |
| General patient information | |
| Sex | |
| Male | 24 (19%) |
| Female | 103 (81%) |
| Age | |
| Younger than 45 years | 14 (11%) |
| 45 to 60 years | 45 (35%) |
| Older than 60 | 67 (53%) |
| No answer | 1 (1%) |
| First occurrence of RA symptoms | |
| Before the age of 30 | 28 (22%) |
| Between the age of 30 and 40 | 19 (15%) |
| Between the age of 40 and 50 | 28 (22%) |
| Between the age of 50 and 60 | 38 (30%) |
| After the age of 60 | 13 (10%) |
| No answer | 1 (1%) |
| Disease duration1 | |
| Median (IQR) [years] | 8.5 (4–13) |
| ≤3 years | 18 (14%) |
| 4 to 10 years | 30 (24%) |
| ≥11 years | 28 (22%) |
| No answer | 51 (40%) |
| Severity of RA | |
| Mild | 18 (14%) |
| Moderate | 80 (63%) |
| Severe | 26 (21%) |
| No answer | 3 (2%) |
| Medical care | |
| Satisfaction with information received from physician during diagnostic process | |
| Very satisfied | 65 (51%) |
| Satisfied | 30 (24%) |
| Neutral | 17 (13%) |
| Not particularly happy | 9 (7%) |
| Completely dissatisfied | 4 (3%) |
| No answer | 2 (2%) |
| Patient was included in therapeutic decision making by physician | |
| Yes | 105 (83%) |
| No | 16 (13%) |
| Current medications | |
| Methotrexate | 77 (61%) |
| Leflunomide | 13 (10%) |
| Sulphasalazine | 7 (6%) |
| Chloroquine/hydrochloroquine | 4 (3%) |
| Concomitant glucocorticoids | 56 (44%) |
| Biologics | 36 (28%) |
| Alternative or complementary remedies | 17 (13%) |
IQR – interquartile range.
1Disease duration could only be calculated if not only the categories, but also the exact age of diagnosis of disease and current age were provided. Since many patients did not provide this information in the questionnaire, disease duration could not be computed for 51 patients.