Table 1.

Descriptive characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.

	RA (inception)	RA (established)
Age (years)	57.4 (47.2–66.2)	53.2 (44.1–63.3)
Female%	74.2	83.8
Disease duration (years)	0.1 (0–0.3)	6.5 (2.5–12)***
Simplified disease activity index	15.6 (9.3–24.2)	14.4 (8.7–21)
Clinical disease activity index	14.2 (8.5–22.1)	12 (7–18.2)
Disease activity score	4.4 (3.4–5.2)	4.2 (3.3–4.8)
C-reactive protein [mg/dl]	0.8 (0.3–1.6)	0.4 (0.2–1.3)
Pain	43 (18–56)	36 (18–56.5)
Patient global disease activity	40 (19.5–60.5)	41 (21–60)
Evaluator’s global disease activity	20 (9.5–35)	21.5 (10–35)
Health access and quality index (HAQ)	0.4 (0–1)	0.8 (0.25–1.5)*
Swollen joint count 28	3 (2–6)	3 (2–6)
Tender joint count 28	3 (1–7)	3 (0–6)
Corticosteroids (mg)	6.3 (5–10.5)	6.3 (5–9.8)

Descriptive characteristics of inception and established RA were calculated at treatment start (baseline), i.e., MTX treatment in the inception cohort and anti-TNF treatment in patients with established RA. Values are medians and lower and the upper quartiles provided in brackets. Disease duration was calculated from the date of diagnosis. The corticosteroid dose also refers only to the baseline visit and gives no information about earlier prescriptions. Significant differences between the inception and established RA cohort are shown in bold numbers. Corr. p-values for disease duration was ***p < 0.0001 and HAQ was *p = 0.012.