ArticleBMJ open sport & exercise medicine2025
Longitudinal monitoring of handgrip strength in rheumatoid arthritis: a window into for disease activity-a systematic review with meta-analysis.
Article in BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Handgrip strength testing in rheumatic diseases.Rheumatology international · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: Handgrip strength (HGS) is a simple, non-invasive measure associated with disability, frailty and disease activity in chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, longitudinal changes in HGS and their implications in RA remain underexplored. This study aimed to systematically review changes in HGS over time and its associations with disease status and follow-up duration in patients with RA. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources: A search of PUBMED, EMBASE and WEB OF SCIENCE were searched for cohort studies up to July 2025. Eligibility criteria: Studies including RA patients, assessing HGS and employing an observational design. Results: From 4301 studies (including 737 identified through citation tracking), 27 met the inclusion criteria, comprising 2742 individuals (mostly women (1784; 65.1%)), aged 19-87 years, with disease duration ranging from 2 months to 47 years. Participants generally had low to moderate disease activity and moderate to severe physical disability. Overall, HGS slightly increased over time (standardised mean difference; SMD 0.25; 95% CI 0.07 to 0.43). Greater improvements were observed in early RA (SMD 0.46; 95% CI 0.30 to 0.61), while no significant changes were found in established RA. HGS increased in patients followed for ≤1 year (SMD 0.25; 95% CI 0.07 to 0.43) and >1-5 years (SMD 0.43; 95% CI 0.05 to 0.81), but not beyond 5 years. Conclusion: Patients with early RA tend to improve HGS over time, whereas those with longer disease duration show stable strength levels. HGS may serve as a useful marker for monitoring function and guiding personalised care in RA. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42023473416.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.