POS1496-HPR IS NUTRITIONAL FOLLOW-UP IN PATIENTS LIVING WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS BETTER WITH TELECONSULTATION? - EXPERIENCE BEFORE AND AFTER PANDEMIC

Background: Nutritional follow-up as part of the integral attention for patients living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It made necessary to implement a remote monitoring for the care of the patients and to evaluate the outcomes of the changes in the care model. Objectives: To identify the effects of the telemonitoring intervention within the pandemic scenario and the outcomes of the traditional face-to-face nutrition consultation. Methods: A retrospective analysis of health records and the administrative data base of the patient’s follow-up, between 2019 and 2020, was developed at the arthritis specialized center of the Santa Fe de Bogota Foundation in Bogota, Colombia. The outcomes measured include the number of visits per year and the proportion of patients who attend their nutritional follow-up by telemonitoring in 2020 vs patients attending to face-to-face nutrition consultation. Differences in the Body Max Index (BMI) and the changes based on eating habits, defined by the quality of food consumption per day, were also measured. Results: A total of 212 patients from 2020 and 179 from 2019 were analyzed; An increase of 61.5% in the number of consultations, using nutritional telemonitoring per year, was identified in 2020 (n=412) compared to 2019 (n=255). In patients followed from 2019 to 2020, 13% (10/77) experienced an increase of more than 2 units of their BMI, while 22% (17/77) showed a decrease; in 2% of patients was not possible to evaluate their current weight; in the same way, 49% (103/212) in 2020 showed a positive change in their feeding habits compared with a 12% (21/179) in 2019. 135 new patients were recruited for nutritional telemonitoring 2020. Conclusion: Nutritional telemonitoring to follow-up patients with RA has increased considerably in terms of consultations per year and changes in the feeding habits. However, more evaluation is required for this model. References: [1]Melanie J Martin, Nora Ng, Laura Blackler, Toby Garrood, P227 Remote monitoring of patients with RA: a user-centred design approach, Rheumatology, Volume 59, Issue Supplement_2, April 2020, keaa111.221, https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/keaa111.221 [2]Principio del formulario Disclosure of Interests: None declared