Análisis de los sistemas de comunicación con la unidad de enfermedad inflamatoria intestinal: perspectiva del paciente y relación con variables clínicas

Abstract

Introduction

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are chronic and recurrent diseases with great medical, social and economic impact and need a constant and multidisciplinary care. IBD Units emerged in order to coordinate the available resources and telemedicine appeared as an important tool for doctor-patient communication. Our purpose is to analyze how patients use the communication systems with our IBD Unit, as well as patients’ opinion about the current systems and the association with clinical outcomes.

Methods

we performed a cross-sectional study in which a survey was conducted to IBD patients who came to the IBD Unit between February and March of 2015. The survey consists of demographic and illness information, clinical activity, use and assessment of the communication systems, treatment adherence and quality of live.

Results

A total of 128 patients were included in the study. Among these, 126 (98.4%) knew and 94 (73.4%) used communication systems. In particular, 38 (40.4%) used the telephone (average score 4.45/5); 50 (53.2%) used the email (average score 4.75/5); and 6 (6.4%) used both. 24 patients (25.5%) contacted monthly, 19 (20.2%) half-yearly, and 51 (54.3%) annually. Comparing by frequency of communication, patients who contact monthly are significantly younger (38.13 vs. 40.16 vs. 48.49 years; P = .005), have worse quality of live (41.58 vs. 53.79 vs. 51.57; P = .002) and use more the email (87.5%; P = .001).

Conclusions

Most patients use the communication systems, and have a high opinion about them. Younger patients with worse quality of life contact more frequently with the IBD Unit, mainly by email.