Establishment and application of the “electronic follow-up platform for endometriosis” during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The management of endometriosis has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to introduce the establishment and application of a new follow-up method during the COVID-19 pandemic—the electronic follow-up (e-follow-up) platform for endometriosis—and to test the applicability of the platform-based follow-up management model and patient satisfaction. We used the platform for information entry and post-operative follow-up of 152 patients with endometriosis from January 2021 to August 2022, and compared patients’ Zung’s Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Visual Analogue Score (VAS) (range: 0 − 10, indicating: no pain-extreme pain) scores preoperatively and after 6-month of follow-up, together with recording patients’ follow-up satisfaction and number of recurrence of lesions. Eventually, the SDS, SAS, and VAS scores were significantly lower than those at pre-surgery (p < .001), and the follow-up satisfaction rate reached 100%, with 91.41% expressing great satisfaction. The cumulative number of recurrences was 2 out of 138. Follow-up using this platform reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, enabled more efficient access to healthcare resources for patients with endometriosis, improved the efficiency of follow-up management, met the mental health needs of the patients.

Keywords

• endometriosis follow up
• general gynaecology
• pain
• women's health
• mental health