Predictors of health care drop-out in an inception cohort of patients with early onset rheumatoid arthritis

Table 2 Cumulative disease activity, quality of life, treatment and persistence with therapy between cases and controls

	Patients with HDO, N = 35	Patients with continuous follow-up, N = 70	p-value
Cumulative disease activity and function
DAS28	3.1 (2.3–4.2)	2.4 (1.9–3.2)	0.02
N° (%) of patients with sustained remission at outcome	18 (51.4)	57 (81.4)	0.03
N° of disease flares/patient^a	1 (1–2)	0 (0–1)	0.000
SF36 score	74 (63–82)	81 (70–89)	0.06
N° of schedule visits	7 (3–9)	7 (3–9)	0.94
Cumulative treatment
N° (%) of patients on corticosteroids	13 (37.1%)	30 (42.6)	0.68
N° of DMARD/patient	2 (1–2)	1 (1–2)	0.06
Cumulative patient’s treatment behaviour^b	N = 30	N = 60
N° (%) of patients always persistent^b	8 (26.6)	26 (43.3)	0.17
% of follow-up on persistence	75 (40–100)	90 (67–100)	0.04
N° (%) of patients with length on persistence <50%^b	11 (36.7)	7 (11.7)	0.01

Data presented as median (Q₂₅-Q₇₅) unless otherwise indicated
^aAll the patients and controls achieved at least one DAS28 < 2.6; 2 cases abandoned health care immediately after entering the cohort; they were discarded from the analysis of flares along with their corresponding controls; date presented are from 33 cases and 66 controls
^bAt least 6 months of follow-up were required to evaluate persistence; 5 cases with insufficient follow-up and their corresponding controls were discarded. Data presented are obtained from 30 cases and 60 controls

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