The PS‐VAS profoundly influences health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index but overlapped 28‐joint Disease Activity Score's effect. For rheumatoid arthritis patients, pain is a serious symptom and causes functional disability. But, 3DAS28 and HAQ‐DI were still under debate.

Ichiro Yoshii and colleagues try to evaluate the hidden information by conducting this trial among 382 RA patients who were under treatment for more than five years. The age, HAQ‐DI score, DAS28 with C‐reactive protein (DAS28‐CRP), pain score evaluated by visual analog scale (PS‐VAS) and the Sharp/van der Heijde Score (SvdHS) were the parameters studied during the investigation. Multivariate linear regression analysis was applied to determine associations between parameters and association between the changes in HAQ‐DI scores and other factors. The influence of PS‐VAS on HAQ‐DI was compared with that of DAS28‐CRP on the overlapping data of every parameter.

A significant positive correlation was observed between HAQ‐DI and all the parameters. The PS‐VAS exhibited a stronger effect as compared to DAS28‐CRP and without overlapping data. HAQ‐DI showed a significant association with PS‐VAS in all analyses after reducing the effects of age, SvdHS, and DAS28‐CRP. The change in HAQ‐DI explained a meaningful association with the change in PS‐VAS.

As per these findings, Pain management among RA patients is the most crucial factor contributing to daily life activities, as well as disease activity control.