Classification of rheumatologic opinion on early inflammatory arthritis: harmonization of a heterogeneous standard.

Objective: Interrater variability limits rheumatologic opinion as a reference standard for early inflammatory arthritis (IA) classification. The study objectives were to determine whether rheumatologic opinion is associated with potential early IA classification methods despite high interrater variability, and to compare the relative strengths of those associations.

Methods: Eighteen rheumatologists independently classified 30 initial rheumatology presentation summaries as early IA or not and recommended a pharmacotherapy.