ArticleRheumatology (Oxford, England)2023
Clinically suspect arthralgia patients with a low educational attainment have an increased risk of developing inflammatory arthritis.
Article in Rheumatology (Oxford, England), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Visit adherence and clinical, inflammatory, and patient-reported outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
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6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
objectivesCross-sectional studies have shown that rheumatoid arthritis is more prevalent among people with a lower educational attainment. No longitudinal data are present on educational attainment in the at-risk phase of clinically suspect arthralgia (CSA). We therefore analysed the association between educational attainment and progression from CSA to inflammatory arthritis (IA), and performed mediation analysis with subclinical joint inflammation to elucidate pathways of this association.
methodsA total of 521 consecutive patients presenting with CSA were followed for IA development during median 25 months. Educational attainment was defined as low (lower secondary vocational education), intermediate or high (college/university education). Subclinical inflammation in hand and foot joints was measured at presentation with contrast enhanced 1.5 T-MRI. Cox-regression was used to analyse IA development per educational attainment. A three-step mediation analysis evaluated whether subclinical joint inflammation was intermediary in the path between educational attainment and IA development, before and after age correction. Association between educational attainment and IA development was verified in an independent CSA cohort.
resultsLow educational attainment was associated with increased IA development (HR = 2.35, 95% CI = 1.27, 4.33, P = 0.006), independent of BMI and current smoking status (yes/no). Moreover, patients with a low educational attainment had higher levels of subclinical inflammation, which also was associated with IA development. Partial mediation effect of subclinical inflammation was observed in the relationship between education and IA development. Low educational attainment was also associated with increased IA development in the validation cohort (HR = 5.72, 95% CI = 1.36, 24.08, P = 0.017).
conclusionThis is the first study providing evidence that lower educational attainment is associated with a higher risk of progressing from arthralgia to IA. This effect was partially mediated by subclinical joint inflammation.
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