Objectives In RA, telemedicine may allow tight control of disease activity while reducing hospital visits. We developed a smartphone application connected with a physician’s interface to monitor RA patients. We aimed to assess the performance of this e-Health solution in comparison with routine practice in the management of patients with RA. Methods A six-month pragmatic, randomized, controlled, prospective, clinical trial was conducted in RA patients with high to moderate disease activity starting a new DMARD therapy. Two groups were established: ‘connected monitoring’ and ‘conventional monitoring’. The primary outcome was the number of physical visits between baseline and six months. Secondary outcomes included adherence, satisfaction, changes in clinical, functional and health status scores (Short-Form 12). Results Of the 94 randomized patients, 89 completed study: 44 in the ‘conventional monitoring’ arm and 45 in the ‘connected monitoring’ arm. The total number of physical visits between required baseline and six-month visits was significantly lower in the ‘connected monitoring’ group [0.42 (0.58) vs 1.93 (0.55); P <0.05]. No differences between groups were observed in the clinical and functional scores. A better quality of life for Short-Form 12 subscores (Role-Physical and Role-Emotional) were found in the ‘connected monitoring’ group. Conclusion Our results suggest that connected monitoring reduces the number of physical visits while maintaining a tight control of disease activity and improving quality of life in patients with RA starting a new treatment. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, https://clinicaltrials.gov, NCT03005925.

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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 approvalThe study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB-MTP_2020_04_202000446).Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed. This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ's website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.

Objective: To evaluate vaccination coverage and reasons for non-vaccination in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). Method: A total of 111 patients fulfilling American-European Consensus Group criteria for pSS were interviewed by use of a standardized questionnaire between January 2016 and November 2017 in two French tertiary referral centers for auto-immune diseases. Results: Updated immunization coverage for influenza was 31.5% (n = 35), pneumococcus was 11.7% (n = 13), and diphtheria-tetanus-poliomyelitis (DTP) was 24.3% (n = 27). The main reasons for non-vaccination were fear of side effects from the influenza vaccine (40.3%) and a lack of proposal for the pneumococcal vaccine (72.3%). In vaccinated patients, vaccination was mainly proposed by general practitioners for the influenza vaccine (42.6%) and rheumatologists for the pneumococcal vaccine (41.2%). Probability of influenza vaccination was associated with age (odds ratio/year (OR) 1.04, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0-1.1; p = 0.016), history of severe infection (OR 15.9, 95% CI 1.35-186; p = 0.028), low EULAR Sjögren's syndrome disease activity index (OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.75-0.96; p = 0.013), and comorbidities (OR 3.52, 95% CI 1.22-10.2; p = 0.02). Probability of vaccination against pneumococcus was associated with lung comorbidities (OR 3.83, 95% CI 1.11-13.12; p = 0.033) and up-to-date influenza vaccination (OR 3.71, 95% CI 1.08-12.8; p = 0.038). Conclusion: Influenza, pneumococcal, and DTP vaccine coverage was low in patients with pSS included in this study. These results underline the relevance of systematically screening vaccine status in pSS patients and educating patients and physicians on the need for vaccination to improve vaccine coverage in this population.

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Background:Telemedicine has found wider application in chronic diseases for encouraging tight home-monitoring in order to improve patients’ outcome (Smolen et al. 2017).In previous studies, a high feasibility and high patient-satisfaction rate was found as well as the evidence for a superior or equal effectiveness of telemedicine compared to the standard face-to-face approach, however the results were weakened by some methodological biases and wide heterogeneity of interventions, thus preventing to draw definitive conclusions (Piga et al. 2017; Najm, Gossec, et al. 2019).Objectives:In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), telemedicine may allow a tight control of disease activity while reducing hospital visits. We developed a smartphone application connected with a physician’s interface to monitor RA patients. We aimed to assess the performance of this e-Health solution in comparison with routine practice in the management of patients with RA.Methods:A 6-month pragmatic, randomized, controlled, prospective, clinical trial was conducted in RA patients with high to moderate disease activity starting a new Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug (DMARD) therapy. Two groups were established: “connected monitoring” and “conventional monitoring”. The primary outcome was the number of physical visits between baseline and 6 months. Secondary outcomes included adherence, satisfaction, changes in clinical, functional, and health status scores (SF-12).Results:Of the 94 randomized patients, 89 completed study: 44 in the “conventional monitoring” arm and 45 in the “connected monitoring” arm. The total number of physical visits between baseline and 6 month was significantly lower in the “connected monitoring” group (0.42 ± 0.58 versus 1.93 ± 0.55; p<0.05). No differences between groups were observed in the clinical and functional scores. A better quality of life for SF-12 subscores (Role-Physical, Social-Functioning and Role-Emotional) were found in the “connected monitoring” group.Conclusion:According to our results, a connected monitoring reduces the number of physical visits while maintaining a tight control of disease activity and improving quality of life in patients with RA starting a new treatment.References:[1] Najm, Aurelie, Laure Gossec, Catherine Weill, David Benoist, Francis Berenbaum, and Elena Nikiphorou. 2019. “Mobile Health Apps for Self-Management of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases: Systematic Literature Review.”JMIR MHealth and UHealth7 (11): e14730.https://doi.org/10.2196/14730.[2] Piga, Matteo, Ignazio Cangemi, Alessandro Mathieu, and Alberto Cauli. 2017. “Telemedicine for Patients with Rheumatic Diseases: Systematic Review and Proposal for Research Agenda.”Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism47 (1): 121–28.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semarthrit.2017.03.014.[3] Smolen, Josef S, Robert Landewe, Johannes Bijlsma, Gerd Burmester, Katerina Chatzidionysiou, Maxime Dougados, Jackie Nam, et al. 2017. “EULAR Recommendations for the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis with Synthetic and Biological Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: 2016 Update.”Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases76 (6): 960–77.https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2016-210715.Disclosure of Interests:None declared