Fig. 1

Change from baseline over time for the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F) (a), morning joint stiffness duration (b), worst joint pain (c), and worst tiredness (d). The dashed line represents the minimum clinically important difference (MCID) in the FACIT-F (≥ 3.56 points). The question asked for morning joint stiffness duration was “Please indicate how long your morning joint stiffness lasted yesterday (duration in minutes).” The question for worst joint pain was “Please rate your joint pain by selecting the one number that describes your joint pain at its WORST in the last 24 hours (0 = no pain; 10 = pain as bad as you can imagine).” The question for worst tiredness was “Please rate your tiredness by selecting the one number that describes your WORST level of tiredness during the past 24 hours (0 = no tiredness; 10 = as bad as you can imagine)”. MTX methotrexate