ArticleThe Lancet. Rheumatology2022
Incidence and management of inflammatory arthritis in England before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-level cohort study using OpenSAFELY.
Article in The Lancet. Rheumatology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Time trends in newly recorded diagnoses of 19 long term conditions before, during, and after the covid-19 pandemic: population based cohort study in England using OpenSAFELY.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Article
- The incidence and mortality of connective tissue diseases: a population-level cohort study in England from 2012 to 2023.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Rising incidence of systemic autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic: a geographical cohort study.RMD open · 2025Article
- Incidence, prevalence, and mortality of sarcoidosis in England: a population-based study.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Article
- How and Who? Examining Real-World Evidence of Engagement and Use of an Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Smartphone Application in Routine Clinical Care for Patients With Inflammatory Arthritides.ACR open rheumatology · 2025Article
- Disease-Modifying Medications in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the USA: Trends from 2016 to 2021.Drugs - real world outcomes · 2024Article
- Trust performance in managing inflammatory arthritis over time in England and Wales: a latent class analysis approach.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2024Article
- The protocol of a clinical effectiveness trial comparing standard step-up care, early combination DMARD therapy and early use of TNF inhibitors for the treatment of moderate to severe psoriatic arthritis: the 3-arm parallel group SPEED randomized controlled trial.Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease · 2024Article
- Gout incidence and management during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, UK: a nationwide observational study using OpenSAFELY.The Lancet. Rheumatology · 2023Observational
- Comparison of Rheumatoid Arthritis Information Recorded in UK CPRD Aurum and CPRD GOLD Databases (Companion Paper 3).Clinical epidemiology · 2023Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on referrals to musculoskeletal services from primary care and subsequent incidence of inflammatory rheumatic musculoskeletal disease: an observational study.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2023Article
- Barriers to the Diagnosis of Early Inflammatory Arthritis: A Literature Review.Open access rheumatology : research and reviews · 2023Review
- The impact of COVID-19 on care of early inflammatory arthritis in the UK.The Lancet. Rheumatology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCorrection to2023
Authors and funding
19 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Background: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence and management of inflammatory arthritis is not understood. Routinely captured data in secure platforms, such as OpenSAFELY, offer unique opportunities to understand how care for patients with inflammatory arthritis was impacted upon by the pandemic. Our objective was to use OpenSAFELY to assess the effects of the pandemic on diagnostic incidence and care delivery for inflammatory arthritis in England and to replicate key metrics from the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit. Methods: In this population-level cohort study, we used primary care and hospital data for 17·7 million adults registered with general practices using TPP health record software, to explore the following outcomes between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2022: (1) incidence of inflammatory arthritis diagnoses (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, and undifferentiated inflammatory arthritis) recorded in primary care; (2) time to first rheumatology assessment; (3) time to first prescription of a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) in primary care; and (4) choice of first DMARD. Findings: Among 17 683 500 adults, there were 31 280 incident inflammatory arthritis diagnoses recorded between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2022. The mean age of diagnosed patients was 55·4 years (SD 16·6), 18 615 (59·5%) were female, 12 665 (40·5%) were male, and 22 925 (88·3%) of 25 960 with available ethnicity data were White. New inflammatory arthritis diagnoses decreased by 20·3% in the year commencing April, 2020, relative to the preceding year (5·1 Interpretation: Inflammatory arthritis diagnoses decreased markedly during the early phase of the pandemic. The impact on rheumatology assessment times and DMARD prescribing in primary care was less marked than might have been anticipated. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using routinely captured, near real-time data in the secure OpenSAFELY platform to benchmark care quality on a national scale, without the need for manual data collection. Funding: None.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.