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Correspondence
Treatment adherence of patients with systemic rheumatic diseases in COVID-19 pandemic
  1. George E Fragoulis,
  2. Gerasimos Evangelatos,
  3. Aikaterini Arida,
  4. Vasiliki-Kalliopi Bournia,
  5. Kalliopi Fragiadaki,
  6. Anastasios Karamanakos,
  7. Evrydiki Kravvariti,
  8. Katerina Laskari,
  9. Stylianos Panopoulos,
  10. Maria Pappa,
  11. Maria G Tektonidou,
  12. Petros P Sfikakis
  1. First Department of Propaedeutic Internal Medicine, Joint Rheumatology Program, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Health Sciences, Athens, Greece
  1. Correspondence to Dr George E Fragoulis, First Department of Propaedeutic Internal Medicine, Joint Rheumatology Program, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Health Sciences, Athens 11527, Greece; geofragoul{at}yahoo.gr

https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-217935

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    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 …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @FragoulisGeorge

    • Contributors GEF and GE: study design, data analysis and interpretation, drafting the manuscript. AA, V-KB, KF, AK, EK, KL, SP, MP: data acquisition. MGT: study design, data analysis and interpretation. PPS: study inception and design, data analysis and interpretation. All authors critically revised and approved the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests GEF: has received speaker honoraria from Janssen, travelling grants from AbbVie and MSD. MGT: has received consultant fees and unrestricted grants from AbbVie, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, GSK and UCB deposited to the Special Account for Research Funding (ELKE) of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School. PPS: has received consultant fees and unrestricted grants from AbbVie, Pfizer, MSD, Roche, UCB, GSK and Novartis deposited to the Special Account for Research Funding (ELKE) of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval This study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Scientific Council of the 'Laiko' hospital (No: 2020/14/4).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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