Medication use in the total study cohort and by sex reported at the last follow-up
| Medication | All | Male | Female | P value* |
| n | 1306 | 420 | 886 | |
| No of medicines per patient, mean (SD) (incl. DMARD) | 2.4 (2.1) | 1.9 (1.9) | 2.7 (2.2) | <0.001 |
| Current treatment with | ||||
| DMARDs | 836 (64.0) | 256 (61.0) | 580 (65.5) | 0.113 |
| bDMARDs | 700 (53.6) | 220 (52.4) | 480 (54.2) | 0.543 |
| sDMARDs | 377 (28.9) | 88 (21.0) | 289 (32.6) | <0.001 |
| NSAIDs | 624 (47.8) | 159 (37.9) | 465 (52.5) | <0.001 |
| Systemic glucocorticoids | 250 (19.1) | 42 (10.0) | 208 (23.5) | <0.001 |
| Analgesics | 139 (10.6) | 31 (7.4) | 108 (12.2) | 0.008 |
| Opioid drugs | 44 (3.4) | 12 (2.9) | 32 (3.6) | 0.48 |
| Drugs for acid related disorders | 90 (6.9) | 26 (6.2) | 64 (7.2) | 0.491 |
| Antiinfectives for systemic use | 80 (6.1) | 26 (6.2) | 54 (6.1) | 0.946 |
| Antidiarrheals, intestinal antiinflammatory/antiinfective agents | 64 (4.9) | 23 (5.5) | 41 (4.6) | 0.507 |
| Thyroid therapy | 64 (4.9) | 9 (2.1) | 55 (6.2) | 0.001 |
| Antidepressant drugs | 45 (3.4) | 9 (2.1) | 36 (4.1) | 0.076 |
| Antihypertensive drugs | 41 (3.1) | 15 (3.6) | 26 (2.9) | 0.538 |
| Eye antiinflammatory/antiinfective agents | 23 (1.8) | 8 (1.9) | 15 (1.7) | 0.786 |
| Antiepileptic drugs | 20 (1.5) | 7 (1.7) | 13 (1.5) | 0.784 |
| Psycholeptic drugs | 19 (1.5) | 7 (1.7) | 12 (1.4) | 0.660 |
| Antithrombotic agents | 15 (1.1) | 1 (0.2) | 14 (1.6) | 0.034 |
| Drugs used in diabetes | 14 (1.1) | 4 (1.0) | 10 (1.1) | 0.773 |
| Antiglaucoma preparations and miotics | 8 (0.6) | 0 | 8 (0.9) | – |
| Drugs affecting bone structure and mineralisation | 2 (0.2) | 0 | 2 (0.2) | – |
| Lipid-modifying agents | 2 (0.2) | 2 (0.5) | 0 | – |
The values are N (%) unless indicated otherwise.
*Univariable Analysis of variance for continuously distributed parameters or χ2 test for categorical parameters.
bDMARD, biological DMARD; DMARD, disease modifying antirheumatic drug; NSAIDs, non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs; sDMARD, synthetic DMARD.