Inflammatory bowel disease advice lines during the COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective service evaluation

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted on healthcare delivery worldwide, affecting many services, including those for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Aims: To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on worldwide IBD telephone advice-line services. Methods: A mixed-methods 25-item online survey was distributed to IBD specialist nurses globally using IBD professional networks, email and social media. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics (quantitative data) and content and thematic analysis (qualitative data). Findings: Across 21 countries, 182 IBD specialists participated. With adjustments, all advice lines remained functional. Call content changed, and call volume increased exponentially. Strategies were recommended to maintain services. IBD specialist nurses faced considerable challenges, including overwhelming workload, disrupted referral pathways, fragmented IBD clinical team support, isolation and greatly lowered morale. Conclusions: To cope with similar future crises, advice-line training, resilience coaching and ringfencing of the IBD clinical team are essential. Development of global guidelines for maintaining advice-line functionality in any scenario is recommended.