Table 1B.

Exclusion criteria.

  1. Studies on adherence to nonmedication therapy or general recommendations (e.g., appointments, exercise, splints, or non-antiarthritic medications (e.g., antihypertensive)4.

  2. Articles on persistence, discontinuation, switching, treatment gap, or retention rate*.

  3. Reviews, case reports, letters, and editorials were excluded from the analysis, but used to search references lists.

  4. Articles that used the term “adherence,” but actually measured persistence or retention rate or treatment gaps.

  5. Articles from which specific information on RA could not be extracted (e.g., papers contained data on a mix of systemic lupus erythematosus or RA, but there was not a breakdown of adherence or factors by diseases)5.

  6. Duplicates.

  7. Papers from which neither adherence nor associated factors could be extracted5.

  8. When adherence was defined only according to physician evaluation [level of compliance was determined by physician ratings of patients, but no corroborating method(s) such as questionnaires, pill counts, etc.] 4.

  9. A cutpoint to define adherence was not used.

  10. Articles not in English.

  • ↵* Persistence represents the time over which a patient continues to fill a prescription. Discontinuation is a measure of persistence that includes number of days to discontinue the medication. RA: rheumatoid arthritis.