"It means almost forgetting that you've got a disease": An OMERACT study to define independence in the context of rheumatoid arthritis remission from the patient perspective.

These novel data suggest a desirable definition of independence includes full active participation without the need to consider or work around disease activity, and cognitive independence from thoughts of RA. Independence in RA remission is a complex concept and next steps will be to seek patient and professional agreement on the most important issues raised in these focus groups to take forward to developing a measure for independence in the context of RA remission from the patient perspective.