Remote Monitoring Empowerment of Patients with IBDs during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic.

Mauro Mastronardi,Maurizio Polignano,Daniela Rossi,Gianluigi Giannelli,Margherita Curlo,Natalino Vena

doi:10.3390/healthcare8040377

Mauro Mastronardi, Maurizio Polignano + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8040377

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Journal: Healthcare	Publication Date: Oct 1, 2020
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Gastroenterology Hospital "Saverio de Bellis"

Abstract

Once the WHO declared the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, the world had to reprogram numerous clinical activities, particularly those related to highly disabling diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). In this study, 1083 IBD patients were assessed, affected by Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), and subdivided into two groups. The first group included patients who needed treatment in person at the outpatients clinic, while the second group could be tele-monitored because they were able to self-administer therapy. The tele-monitoring was based on telecommunication applications via smartphone, driven by a dedicated clinical control room in the IBD Clinic. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life (using IBDQ32) of UC patients and tele-monitored CD patients (tele-monitoring group) as compared to those patients who underwent assessment in person in the outpatients clinic (control group). Despite observing a lower number of relapses in the control group than the tele-monitoring group, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups in terms of the IBD32Q scores. Tele-monitoring of patients who are able to self-administer the IBD therapy can be an effective vicarious system as compared to the clinical evaluation in person, that could lead to important changes to avoid the overcrowding of the IBD outpatients clinic, especially during public health crises like the present pandemic.

Highlights

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 was first reported in Wuhan, China, but rapidly spread worldwide, and has caused approximately 13,150,645 cases and 574,464 deaths, as declared by the WHO [1]
The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life (QoL) of Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s Disease (CD) tele-monitored patients compared to those patients who underwent assessment in person in the outpatients clinic
We subdivided the sample into two groups: (1) 421 patients assessed in person, undergoing different therapy protocols, defined as the control group; (2) 617 patients who did not need treatment in person, defined as the tele-monitoring group

Summary

Introduction

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 was first reported in Wuhan, China, but rapidly spread worldwide, and has caused approximately 13,150,645 cases and 574,464 deaths (updated to the 15th of July 2020), as declared by the WHO [1]. The critical situation obliged the Italian Government to adopt several measures to contain the spread of the infection, including social distancing, lockdown of all non-vital activities, and community isolation. Routine medical activities, such as inpatients activities for patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), were reduced, both for patients’ safety reasons and to avoid a possible explosion of the contagion. IBDs are disorders of multifactorial causes that present in a multitude of phenotypes, with different clinical behaviors and severity. IBDs cover a spectrum of disorders that consist of a focal inflammation of the gut with different clinical manifestations.

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