Table 3.

Scale for methodological quality assessment

Criteria	Score
Representativeness of cases
RA diagnosed according to acknowledged criteria	2
Mentioned the diagnosed criteria but not specifically described	1
Not Mentioned	0
Source of controls
Population or community based	3
Hospital-based RA-free controls	2
Healthy volunteers without total description	1
RA-free controls with related diseases	0.5
Not described	0
Sample size
> 300	2
200-300	1
< 200	0
Quality control of genotyping methods
Repetition of partial/total tested samples with a different method	2
Repetition of partial/total tested samples with the same method	1
Not described	0
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE)
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in control subjects	1
Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium in control subjects	0