P1114 Integral care of the non-Spanish speaking migrant population in inflammatory bowel disease units

Abstract

Abstract Background In recent years, given the change in the paradigm of management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), the different societies have been working to ensure continuous, homogeneous, multidisciplinary social and health care with the patients and their autonomy as the central axis; promoting the creation of Integrated Care Units for IBD patients (ICU-IBD). In the latest analyses of our ICU, attention was drawn to the progressive increase in the demand for care from non-Spanish-speaking migrant patients. This prompted us to carry out this study, with the aim of finding out how this population uses our unit and how it responds to their needs. Methods A retrospective longitudinal descriptive observational study with analysis of demographic, clinical and care variables of all non-Spanish-speaking migrant patients followed in the ICU-IBD of our centre until 30 June 2023. Results Thirty patients of 14 different nationalities were included, with Moroccan being the most frequent (43.3%); only one of them (3.3%) was fluent in Spanish. Other clinical and demographic characteristics of note were: mean age at follow-up of 43.2 years, predominantly female (66.6%) and predominantly Crohn's disease (63.3%) (Table 1). A total of 86.7% of the patients were referred to our ICU-IBD from the Emergency Department, which they attended due to symptoms related to flare-ups of their intestinal disease. After the initial assessments, we observed that 73.3% did not attend for check-ups, 83.3% of the patients attended the emergency department in the event of a clinical flare-up, and 93.3% showed irregular adherence to treatment. In the subsequent follow-up, we observed a significant change, 76.7% regularly attended consultations, 76.7% consulted the unit in the event of an outbreak and 60% followed treatment regularly (Figure 1). These changes coincide with a socio-health intervention carried out by the specialised nurse; in which patients and their environment were provided with information regarding their disease, treatment and use of the UAI-EII; as well as addressing socio-health problems in order to facilitate their wellbeing and integration into the community. Conclusion In view of our results and the data published in other studies, we suggest that the language barrier, the social and healthcare culture of the country of origin, the socioeconomic situation and integration into the new social environment are factors to be taken into account in order to achieve adequate comprehensive care for this migrant population. The role of the IBD nurse is fundamental in the daily work of offering individualised, continuous and comprehensive care to both the patient and their environment; even more so in this population with marked socio-cultural barriers.