RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Early experience of COVID-19 vaccination in adults with systemic rheumatic diseases: results from the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance Vaccine Survey
JF RMD Open
JO RMD Open
FD EULAR
SP e001814
DO 10.1136/rmdopen-2021-001814
VO 7
IS 3
A1 Sattui, Sebastian Eduardo
A1 Liew, Jean W
A1 Kennedy, Kevin
A1 Sirotich, Emily
A1 Putman, Michael
A1 Moni, Tarin T
A1 Akpabio, Akpabio
A1 Alpízar-Rodríguez, Deshiré
A1 Berenbaum, Francis
A1 Bulina, Inita
A1 Conway, Richard
A1 Singh, Aman Dev
A1 Duff, Eimear
A1 Durrant, Karen L
A1 Gheita, Tamer A
A1 Hill, Catherine L
A1 Howard, Richard A
A1 Hoyer, Bimba F
A1 Hsieh, Evelyn
A1 El Kibbi, Lina
A1 Kilian, Adam
A1 Kim, Alfred Hyoungju
A1 Liew, David F L
A1 Lo, Chieh
A1 Miller, Bruce
A1 Mingolla, Serena
A1 Nudel, Michal
A1 Palmerlee, Candace A
A1 Singh, Jasvinder A
A1 Singh, Namrata
A1 Ugarte-Gil, Manuel Francisco
A1 Wallace, John
A1 Young, Kristen J
A1 Bhana, Suleman
A1 Costello, Wendy
A1 Grainger, Rebecca
A1 Machado, Pedro M
A1 Robinson, Philip C
A1 Sufka, Paul
A1 Wallace, Zachary S
A1 Yazdany, Jinoos
A1 Harrison, Carly
A1 Larché, Maggie
A1 Levine, Mitchell
A1 Foster, Gary
A1 Thabane, Lehana
A1 Rider, Lisa G
A1 Hausmann, Jonathan S
A1 Simard, Julia F
A1 Sparks, Jeffrey A
YR 2021
UL http://rmdopen.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001814.abstract
AB Background We describe the early experiences of adults with systemic rheumatic disease who received the COVID-19 vaccine.Methods From 2 April to 30 April 2021, we conducted an online, international survey of adults with systemic rheumatic disease who received COVID-19 vaccination. We collected patient-reported data on clinician communication, beliefs and intent about discontinuing disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) around the time of vaccination, and patient-reported adverse events after vaccination.Results We analysed 2860 adults with systemic rheumatic diseases who received COVID-19 vaccination (mean age 55.3 years, 86.7% female, 86.3% white). Types of COVID-19 vaccines were Pfizer-BioNTech (53.2%), Oxford/AstraZeneca (22.6%), Moderna (21.3%), Janssen/Johnson & Johnson (1.7%) and others (1.2%). The most common rheumatic disease was rheumatoid arthritis (42.3%), and 81.2% of respondents were on a DMARD. The majority (81.9%) reported communicating with clinicians about vaccination. Most (66.9%) were willing to temporarily discontinue DMARDs to improve vaccine efficacy, although many (44.3%) were concerned about rheumatic disease flares. After vaccination, the most reported patient-reported adverse events were fatigue/somnolence (33.4%), headache (27.7%), muscle/joint pains (22.8%) and fever/chills (19.9%). Rheumatic disease flares that required medication changes occurred in 4.6%.Conclusion Among adults with systemic rheumatic disease who received COVID-19 vaccination, patient-reported adverse events were typical of those reported in the general population. Most patients were willing to temporarily discontinue DMARDs to improve vaccine efficacy. The relatively low frequency of rheumatic disease flare requiring medications was reassuring.Data are available on reasonable request. Researchers interested in performing additional analyses from survey data are invited to submit proposals through the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance at rheum-covid.org. For approved projects, we will be able to provide summary tables and data analyses as requested. We do not currently have IRB approval to make the raw data available to other researchers.