The relationship between disease activity, sleep, psychiatric distress and pain sensitivity in rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study

Table 4 Independent association between clinical variables and pain threshold (multivariable linear regression analyses)

Variables	Wrist pain threshold¹		Thumbnail pain threshold¹		Trapezius pain threshold¹
	β²	Pvalue	β²	Pvalue	β²	Pvalue
C-reactive protein	-0.15	0.003	-0.13	0.05	-0.03	0.55
Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Problems Index II	-0.04	0.007	-0.06	0.002	-0.04	0.01
Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Total Score	-0.03	0.48	0.01	0.80	-0.009	0.85

¹ Separate models were run for wrist pain threshold, thumbnail pain threshold and trapezius pain threshold. All models included the three variables above (C-reactive protein, Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Score, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Total Score) and were adjusted for age and biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug use.
² The β-coefficient represents the change in the outcome (i.e., pain threshold) given a one unit change in the predictor, holding all other variables constant. β-coefficients of different predictors cannot be directly compared because a one unit change in one predictor (i.e., 1 mg/ml change in CRP) may be quite different from a one unit change in another predictor (i.e., one unit on the Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Score.

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