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.