Table 4.

Comparison of methods according to the most severe, frequent, and bothersome AS symptoms

	Most Frequent	Most Severe	Most Impactful	How was this Identified?
CE interviews (N = 12)	Fatigue Neck pain Lower back pain	Shoulder pain Lower back pain Neck pain	Lower back pain Shoulder pain Neck pain	Specifically probed during interview as each symptom was mentioned
Social media review (N = 100 posts)	Unable to determine based on postsreviewed	Fatigue Lower back pain	Unable to determine based on posts reviewed	If described within chatroom post.
GCM (N = 16) (Average rating data)	Fatigue (2.4) Stiff neck (2.4) Restricted spine movement (2.2)	Fatigue (2.6) Stiff neck (2.4) Stiff back (2.1)	Fatigue (1.6) Neck pain (1.4) Stiff neck (1.4)	Based on ‘ratings’ data (stage 3 of GCM)

AS ankylosing spondylitis, CE concept elicitation, GCM group concept mapping