1. Early experience of COVID-19 vaccination in adults with systemic rheumatic diseases: results from the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance Vaccine Survey
- Author
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Alfred H.J. Kim, Tamer A. Gheita, Lina El Kibbi, Akpabio Akanimo Akpabio, S. Mingolla, Philip Robinson, Gary Foster, Chieh Lo, Manuel F. Ugarte-Gil, Jean W. Liew, Jinoos Yazdany, Suleman Bhana, Michal Nudel, Christopher Hill, Lehana Thabane, Carly Harrison, Jonathan S. Hausmann, Jasvinder A. Singh, Kristen J. Young, Emily Sirotich, Richard A Howard, Adam Kilian, Tarin Moni, Paul Sufka, Julia F. Simard, Candace A Palmerlee, Bimba F. Hoyer, Pedro Machado, Jeffrey A. Sparks, Bruce Miller, Maggie Larché, Namrata Singh, Aman Dev Singh, Deshire Alpizar-Rodriguez, Eimear Duff, Mitchell Levine, Richard Conway, Evelyn Hsieh, Zachary S. Wallace, Sebastian E. Sattui, Lisa G. Rider, Kevin Kennedy, David F L Liew, Rebecca Grainger, Wendy Costello, Inita Bulina, K. Durrant, Michael S. Putman, John Wallace, Francis Berenbaum, and Medicine
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pediatrics ,Aging ,COVID-19 Vaccines ,Immunology ,Population ,Clinical Sciences ,Infections ,Autoimmune Disease ,Vaccine Related ,Rheumatology ,Internal medicine ,Rheumatic Diseases ,Surveys and Questionnaires ,medicine ,Immunology and Allergy ,Humans ,autoimmune diseases ,Adverse effect ,education ,education.field_of_study ,business.industry ,SARS-CoV-2 ,Arthritis ,Prevention ,Inflammatory and immune system ,Vaccination ,COVID-19 ,Middle Aged ,Vaccine efficacy ,medicine.disease ,3.4 Vaccines ,Rheumatoid arthritis ,6.1 Pharmaceuticals ,Medicine ,Chills ,Female ,Immunization ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Somnolence - Abstract
BackgroundWe describe the early experiences of adults with systemic rheumatic disease who received the COVID-19 vaccine.MethodsFrom 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.ResultsWe 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%.ConclusionAmong 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.
- Published
- 2021