Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity Index-5: an easy and effective way of monitoring patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Objective To study the utility of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity Index-5 (RADAI-5) as a valid tool for daily rheumatoid arthritis (RA) monitoring and to compare its predictability to assess RA activity with respect to Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28) and Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI). Patients and methods A total of 100 patients with RA (diagnosed as per American College of Rheumatology 1987 criteria) were enrolled in the study group. Each patient was assessed two times with 3-month interval for disease activity (DA) using DAS28, CDAI, and RADAI-5. Spearman’s correlation coefficient (ρ) for correlation and kappa for agreement between different activity measures were assessed. Results In our study group, 19% patients were men and 81% patients were women, with male to female ratio of 1 : 4.3. Their mean age was 44.4±11.8 years, and their mean disease duration was 67.5±59.8 months. On initial visit, that is, baseline, mean DA as per RADAI-5, DAS28, and CDAI were 5.14±2.17, 5.58±1.55, and 27.96±15.46, respectively, and on follow-up visit, the readings were 3.76±1.92, 4.54±1.41, and 17.67±12.46, respectively. The mean changes in DA at follow-up visit were −1.37±2.15 by RADAI-5, −1.04±1.58 by DAS28, and −10.29±15.75 by CDAI. Changes in DA indices correlated significantly with each other with ρ ranging from 0.8 to 0.9 (P<0.001). An average agreement was found among all three measures at different DA level. Conclusion RADAI-5 seems to be an effective tool with high tendency to assess the changes in RA DA in routine patient care in hospital settings as well as in home-based settings.

Keywords

• Clinical Disease Activity Index
• Disease Activity Score 28
• Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity Index-5