Selection of Patients With Chronic Inflammatory Rheumatism Requiring Management During the COVID-19 Pandemia

The project proposes to evaluate a strategy for prioritizing teleconsultation for patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemia. This selection will be done through telephone contact by medical students, supervised by residents and rheumatologists on a patient database. The other objectives are to assess the impact of the pandemia on the physical and mental health of patients classified as being at risk

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the suspension of consultations and hospitalization of the majority of patients followed in the Rheumatology Department of the Limoges University Hospital. The department therefore implemented a strategy for the management of patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatism (CIR) during this period, which allowed maintaining contact with patients in the patient database. During this telephone call, an CIR-Covid19 questionnaire was fulfilled in order to prioritize patients requiring rapid management. The strategy is based on the use of the available health reserve, i.e. volunteered medical students to provide patient management assistance. These students were trained with face-to-face learning in the rheumatology department given by residents on chronic inflammatory rheumatism to remind them of all the elements of diagnosis and management. They had an interview with a senior rheumatologist from the Department to present the questionnaire and its objectives , to give them advice regarding communication with patients, as well as information about the COVID-19 infection and recommendations of the French Rheumatology Society for CIR patients. The students were trained with quizzes on practical situations, with feedback on the answers. The information's collected in the questionnaire were based on the patients' feelings. Telephone communication does not allow an assessment of disease activity according to validated criteria as it requires a clinical examination. The opinion of the referring rheumatologist was requested by the patients or by the medical student at the end of the telephone call, depending on the information collected. At any time, the medical students could call upon to senior doctors from the department or residents in case of difficulties. 943 patients were thus contacted between 14/04/2020 and 28/04/2020. They were able to benefit from an optimized management according to the context of the COVID19 pandemic. These questionnaires were analyze in order to assess the need for specialized follow-up during this period and to evaluate the impact of COVID19 on this population.