Determination of the minimal clinically important difference in rheumatoid arthritis joint damage of the Sharp/van der Heijde and Larsen/Scott scoring methods by clinical experts and comparison with the smallest detectable difference

Abstract

This study suggests that the SDD of the Sharp/van der Heijde method can be used as the MCID, i.e., as the threshold level for individual response criteria. The SDD of the Larsen/Scott method, however, turned out to be too insensitive to use as the threshold for individual clinically relevant change.