TELEMONITORING IN PERITONEAL DIALYSIS. BENEFITS IN CLINICAL EVENTS AND QUALITY OF LIFE. A RETROSPECTIVE MULTICENTER STUDY

Abstract BACKGROUND AND AIMS Telemonitoring (RM), applied in automated peritoneal dialysis (APD), has shown both clinical and quality of life (QoL) benefits, although current evidence is limited. The aim of this study is to analyse the number of significant interventions in a 3-month period (unscheduled consultations and teleconsultations, ) as well as clinical consequences (hospitalizations) and QoL, measured by the EuroQol-5D questionnaire in cohort of RMAPD patients. METHOD Retrospective multicenter exploratory cohort study analysed three cohorts of patients in RMAPD: incident (3 months in technique) versus prevalent with 6 months to 1 year in technique versus prevalent with more than 1 year in technique. Both the baseline characteristics of the patients and the number of significant interventions in a 3-month period were analysed: (unscheduled consultations and teleconsultations,) as well as clinical consequences (hospitalizations) and QoL, measured by the EuroQol-5D questionnaire. The variables have been expressed as mean and standard deviation, as well as an ANOVA test to make comparisons between variables, as well as non-parametric for non-normal variables. RESULTS Analysis of 100 patients in RMAPD from 10 different Spanish centers, classified as: incident (group 0), prevalent 6 months to 1 year (group 1), prevalent >1 year (group 2), the variables analysed are presented in the form of table (Fig. 1): From the results analysed, no significant differences were found between the variables analysed, except in the number of unscheduled teleconsultations, significantly higher in group 0 compared to group 2 (P < 0.05). Interestingly, the patients manifested a good perceived QoL in all groups (M: 0.88, EUROQol-5D). CONCLUSION Despite the limitations of this study, the results allow us to consider telemonitoring as a useful technique in patients in APD since: