Physician-patient relationship in rheumatoid arthritis management

The article by Rodrigues and colleagues proposes an innovative useful tool to assess physician-patient agreement in clinical practice and demonstrates that patients with a more positive experience have lower disease activity scores1. Notably, it has been shown, by the same research group, that psychological aspects (i.e. self-esteem and affect) impact on therapeutic adherence in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA)2. In our opinion, these are very timely topics. In fact, despite the treat-to-target recommendations and the efforts in dissecting factors that contribute to achieve disease control, the goal of long-term remission is accomplished in less than half of RA patients3. Treatment adherence and satisfaction play a critical role in patients with chronic diseases and their improvement could only be obtained after a complete comprehension of the underlying determinants