When do I take my other medical problems into account?

Some questions ask about your rheumatic disorder, and others ask about your general health, which includes everything else, such as any other medical problems you may have. If it’s not clear, you should answer with your general health in mind. In any case, don’t worry about the difference too much or spend too much time on it. Your first thoughts on it are probably the most valuable to us.

In fact, many of the people in the study have more than one health problem. We are able to separate out the symptoms by using many of the answers you give us. There are many, many diseases and conditions that people in the study have in addition to their rheumatic diseases. It would beyond our capacity to study all or many of them, and the length of the questionnaire would probably cause many people to drop out, which would hurt the basic purpose of our research.