PRISM (Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure) has been developed since the mid-1990s; the task was first developed as a simple measure of how a person was coping with his or her experience of illness. This is an international, multicentre study to evaluate the PRISM tool for the assessment of suffering in rheumatoid arthritis at different stages of the illness and the effect of treatment intervention. There are 5 sites: Berlin, Oxford, Limoges, Montreal and Queensland. The study will recruit 200 patients in total.