Open AccessVariation among rheumatologists in the use of prednisone and second‐line agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
Author(s) -
Criswell Lindsey A.,
Redfearn William J.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
arthritis & rheumatism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1529-0131
pISSN - 0004-3591
DOI - 10.1002/art.1780370407
Subject(s) - prednisone , rheumatoid arthritis , medicine , logistic regression , statistic , variation (astronomy) , random effects model , rheumatology , physical therapy , statistics , mathematics , astrophysics , physics , meta analysis
Objective . To test for and estimate variation among rheumatologists in their prescribing of prednisone and second‐line agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), after taking into account the characteristics of their patients. Methods . Multiple logistic regression incorporating random effects for rheumatologists, with adjustment for patient characteristics. Results . Values for the likelihood‐ratio statistic provided strong evidence of such variation. Random‐effect variance estimates showed that the variation is of great magnitude. Conclusion . Even after patient characteristics have been taken into account, the data show that the rheumatologist may strongly influence the use of prednisone and second‐line agents by a patient.