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In order to determine the burden of inflammatory rheumatic diseases across Europe, the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) unique-methodology prevalence survey of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) was carried out in several European countries, including Serbia. Aiming to enable comparable results, it comprised a common two-stage approach: a detection phase (validated screening telephone questionnaire, primarily tested in France1 ,2) and a confirmation phase (according to a certified rheumatologist or, for previously non-diagnosed cases, a rheumatology examination).
The Serbian SpA prevalence survey was conducted by 30 trained interviewers on urban population in four Serbian towns: Belgrade (north), and Čačak, Kruševac and Užice (south), by telephone (every 100th telephone number) from April to October 2008. The sample covered 36.5% of the total Serbian population with more than 99% Caucasians, mostly orthodox Serbs (83%), <4% Hungarians, Gypsies and Bosnians and a minority of other nationalities. Respondents were asked whether they have (or …
Footnotes
Funding This work was supported by a EULAR grant, under the EULAR prevalence survey of rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthropathy, endorsed by the EULAR Standing Committee of Epidemiology and Health Service Research.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval Ethics Committee, Institute of Rheumatology, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.