Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
We read with great interest the preliminary German Society of Rheumatology recommendations for the management of patients with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIRD) during the COVID-19 pandemic.1 As other regulatory bodies suggest2 3 patients should not discontinue their anti-rheumatic treatment because of fear.1
Herein, we investigated to which extent patients with AIRD altered their treatment during COVID-19 pandemic and whether there are any factors that affected their decision. We telephone-interviewed (14 April 2020–22 April 2020), 500 consecutive AIRD-patients followed-up in our centre and recorded the following parameters: age, sex, cohabitation, region of residence (urban, semiurban, rural), level of education (first, second, third), employment status, disease duration, current treatment and presence of co-morbidities (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), depression, anxiety).
Specific questions referred to the COVID-19 pandemic period in Greece, starting on 26 February 2020, with predefined answer-options, were asked: discontinuation of any medication received for AIRDs, possible reasons that led to drug discontinuation (including fear of immunosuppresion and lack of resources/drug shortage), whether advise was received from a clinician or other sources, symptomatology compatible with COVID-19 infection, subjective assessment (on …