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Rheumatology Unit, Department
of Internal Medicine, University of Genova, Italy
Correspondence to: Dr M A Cimmino, Unità di Reumatologia, Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, Viale Benedetto XV, 6, 16132 Genova, Italy.
Accepted for publication 4 March 1998
OBJECTIVE
To ascertain the prevalence of
rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in an Italian general population.
METHODSThe study was performed in the years
1991-92 in Chiavari, a small town located on the Ligurian coast, and
involved 4456 subjects aged 16 years or more from four general
practices. The subjects received a postal questionnaire developed to
detect patients with current or past inflammatory joint diseases. The
age and sex distribution of the sample were similar to those of the
Italian population from the 1992 census. Patients reporting a history
of joint swelling in at least a pair of symmetrical joints were
reviewed by a rheumatologist. The clinical records of non-responders
and responders who failed to attend the clinic were also reviewed.
RESULTS3294 of 4456 (73.9%) subjects answered to
the questionnaire. The mean (SD) age of the 3294 responders was 48.3 (19.3) years; 53.7% of them were female. Swelling in at least two
symmetrical joints was reported by 230 subjects (7%). Among them, 11 patients fulfilling the 1987 ARA criteria for RA were identified. The
prevalence of RA was 0.33% (95% CI 0.13, 0.53) in the general
population, 0.13% (95% CI 0, 0.31) in men, and 0.51% (95% CI 0.18, 0.84) in women.
CONCLUSIONSThese data are consistent with the
results of three earlier studies published in the fifties in the
Italian literature and confirm that the prevalence of RA is low in
Italy and has remained unchanged in the last 40 years.
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