Spiritual Healing in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Exploratory Single Centre, Parallel-Group, Double-Blind, Three-Arm, Randomised, Sham-Controlled Trial
Table 2
Change in outcomes from baseline after 29 weeks.
Outcome variable
Active healing
Sham healing
No healing
ANCOVA1
Mean
(95% CI)
Mean
(95% CI)
Mean
(95% CI)
value
Disease activity score (28 joints)
−0.525
(−0.871; −0.179)
0.092
(−0.254; 0.438)
−0.287
(−0.633; 0.059)
0.046
Doppler ultrasound (colour fraction: 0-1)
−0.036
(−0.059; −0.013)
−0.012
(−0.036; 0.011)
−0.023
(−0.045; 0.000)
0.345
Tender joint count (28 joints)
−2.4
(−3.8; −0.9)
0.2
(−1.2; 1.7)
−1.2
(−2.7; 0.3)
0.047
Swollen joint count (28 joints)
−2.2
(−3.6; −0.8)
0.0
(−1.4; 1.4)
−1.5
(−2.9; −0.1)
0.097
Patient visual analogue scale (mm)
1.8
(−4.9; 8.6)
5.0
(−1.8; 11.7)
−4.4
(−11.1; 2.3)
0.139
C-reactive protein concentration (mg/L)
−3.55
(−6.87; −0.22)
−0.27
(−3.61; 3.08)
−0.58
(−3.90; 2.75)
0.316
Health Assessment Questionnaire score (0–3)
0.0
(−0.1; 0.1)
0.1
(0.0; 0.2)
−0.1
(−0.2; 0.0)
0.051
Physician visual analogue scale (mm)
−3.9
(−8.4; 0.6)
2.6
(−2.0; 7.2)
−2.9
(−7.3; 1.6)
0.101
The analysis of covariance model included the change as the dependent variable, with treatment group being as the main effect and the baseline score as the additional covariate.
