OA19 Incidence and management of inflammatory arthritis in England before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-level cohort study using OpenSAFELY
Authors: Russell Mark D , Galloway James B , Andrews Colm D , MacKenna Brian , Goldacre Ben , Mehrkar Amir , Curtis Helen J , Butler-Cole Ben , O'Dwyer Thomas , Qureshi Sumera , Ledingham Joanna M , Mahto Arti , Rutherford Andrew I , Adas Maryam A , Alveyn Edward , Norton Sam , Cope Andrew P , Bechman Katie 
Published: April 2023

Background/Aims

The impact of the pandemic on the incidence and management of inflammatory arthritis (IA) is not understood. Routinely-captured data in secure platforms, such as OpenSAFELY, offer unique opportunities to understand how IA was impacted upon by the pandemic. Our objective was to use OpenSAFELY to assess the effects of the pandemic on diagnostic incidence and care delivery for IA in England, and replicate key metrics from the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit.

Methods

With the approval of NHS England, we used primary care and hospital data for 17 million adults registered with general practices using TPP health record software, to explore the following outcomes between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022: 1) incidence of IA diagnoses (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, undifferentiated IA) recorded in primary care; 2) time to first rheumatology assessment; 3) time to first prescription of a conventional synthetic DMARD (csDMARD) in primary care, and choice of first csDMARD.

Results

From 17,683,500 adults (representing 40% of the English population), there were 31,280 incident IA diagnoses recorded between April 2019 and March 2022. New IA diagnoses decreased by 39.7% in the early months of the pandemic. Overall, a 20.3% decrease in IA diagnoses was seen in the year commencing April 2020, relative to the preceding year (5.1 vs. 6.4 diagnoses per 10,000 adults, respectively). Further decreases coincided with rising COVID-19 numbers, before returning to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the study period. No rebound increase in IA incidence was observed as of April 2022. The median time from referral to first rheumatology assessment was shorter during the pandemic (18 days; IQR 8-35 days) than before (21 days; 9-41 days). The proportion of patients prescribed csDMARDs in primary care was comparable to before the pandemic; however, fewer people were prescribed methotrexate or leflunomide, and more were prescribed sulfasalazine or hydroxychloroquine.

Conclusion

IA diagnoses decreased markedly during the early phase of the pandemic; however, the impact on rheumatology assessment times and DMARD prescribing was less marked than might have been anticipated. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using routinely-captured, near real-time data in the secure OpenSAFELY platform to benchmark care quality on a national scale, without the need for manual data collection.

Disclosure

M.D. Russell: Honoraria; Lilly, Menarini, Biogen. Other; Lilly, Pfizer, Janssen, UCB. J.B. Galloway: Honoraria; Abbvie, Biovitrum, BMS, Celgene, Chugai, Gilead, Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Sobi, UCB. C.D. Andrews: None. B. MacKenna: None. B. Goldacre: Grants/research support; Laura and John Arnold Foundation, NIHR, Mohn-Westlake Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Good Thinking Foundation, Health Data Research UK, Health Foundation, World Health Organisation, UKRI, Asthma UK, British Lung Foundation, and National Core Studies programme. A. Mehrkar: Other; Former employee and interim CMO of NHS Digital, and RCGP representative on GP Data Professional Advisory Group to NHS Digital. H.J. Curtis: None. B. Butler-Cole: None. T. O'Dwyer: None. S. Qureshi: Grants/research support; BMS. J.M. Ledingham: Other; Clinical director for NEIAA, Secretary for The Federation of Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians SCE Board, and trustee of the BSR. A. Mahto: Honoraria; Abbvie, Galapagos. Other; Lilly. A.I. Rutherford: Other; Lilly. M.A. Adas: None. E. Alveyn: None. S. Norton: None. A.P. Cope: Consultancies; BMS, Abbvie, GSK/Galvini. Member of speakers’ bureau; BMS, Abbvie. Grants/research support; BMS. Other; Executive committee of the EULAR research centre. K. Bechman: Grants/research support; Versus Arthritis and Pfizer Global Medical Grants.