PURPOSE: The present study investigates the effectiveness of active physiotherapy under rout-ine health service conditions based on a secon-dary analysis of patients with rheumatic diseases. METHODS: The data of 570 patients in the RheumaDat study were reanalysed. In this study a panel of patients with rheumatic diseases was observed over a period of 2 years using standardised questionnaires. The present investigation is based on the primary 6 months of the period. An analysis of variance (general linear model) was used to investigate the effectiveness of active physiotherapy services on pain intensity, functional capacity (FFbH) and quality of life (SF 36). RESULTS: Nearly half of the patients received active physiotherapy in the investigated period. These patients were younger and their date of diagnosis was earlier compared to the patients without active physiotherapy. There was no influence of active physiotherapy over time on pain intensity and functional capacity. A significant positive influence of active physiotherapy was found on general health. CONCLUSION: The results show large heterogeneity and insufficient evidence for the effectiveness of routine physiotherapeutic care and raise some questions about the systematics of routine physiotherapy services in patients with rheumatic diseases.