Outpatient Clinic in Obesity Care During COVID-19 Outbreak: Physically Far, Virtually Near

University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"

Status: Completed

Conditions: Bariatric Surgery Candidate; Patient Underwent Bariatric Surgery

Treatments: Other: Telemedicine to remote outpatient visit in bariatric patient

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04407663

Telemedicine

Details and patient eligibility

About

Bariatric patients represent a peculiar and frail subset of subjects, constantly increasing. During the novel coronavirus disease outbreak, for the lockdown of any non-urgent and non-oncological activity, the access to healthcare services was severely limited, according to the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders.

Full description

The constant and strict follow-up is mandatory in this special subset of patients. Therefore, starting from the telemedicine experience in different medical fields, in our bariatric surgery division we designed and started a dedicated project to follow-up obese patients using remote counselling.

Enrollment: 138 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• obese adults (> 18 years of age, BMI> 40 or > 35 with comorbidities) older than 18 years
• patients undergoing bariatric surgery within 6 months
• patients who required clinical and instrumental control
• presence of a caregiver in case of subject with cognitive impairment; patients with a history of bariatric surgery who requested a first outpatients access or established patients who requested an outpatients' visit for an emerging problem.

Exclusion criteria

• virtual visit decline
• the internet or smart devices unavailability
• need for physical examination or radiological investigations established during a preliminary contact by phone.

Trial design

138 participants in 1 patient group

Bariatric Patient

Description:

Inclusion criteria were as follows: obese adults (\> 18 years of age, BMI\> 40 or \> 35 with comorbidities) older than 18 years; patients undergoing bariatric surgery within 6 months; patients who required clinical and instrumental control; presence of a caregiver in case of subject with cognitive impairment; patients with a history of bariatric surgery who requested a first outpatients access or established patients who requested an outpatients' visit for an emerging problem.

Treatment:

Other: Telemedicine to remote outpatient visit in bariatric patient