Background: Reproductive health is growing attention is all medical fields. As most rheumatic diseases are diagnosed at young age both in men and women, reproductive health is to be considered for a comprehensive management of our patients.

Objectives: To assess whether reproductive health counselling is a valid choice for patients with rheumatic diseases.

Methods: In this observational study, a survey about reproductive health (sexuality, contraception, fertility, pregnancy, lactation, transmissibility) in relation to their disease has been administered to patients with immune-mediated diseases aged 18 to 50years, attending a Reproductive Health Counselling Clinic. Their need for information about reproductive health as part of a counselling carried out by dedicated rheumatologists was investigated. A survey about their experience with our clinic is analyzed in this study.

Results: From January to September 2023, 271 patients completed the survey (Figure 1), of which 102 (37.6%) asked for counselling. Of these 102 patients, 24 (23.5%) wanted to explore contraception, 49 (48.0%) fertility, 79 (77.5%) transmissibility, 46 (45.1%) drugs used for their rheumatic disease and 41 (40.2%) sexuality. 68.3% of women wanted to address pregnancy and lactation, while 7 men wanted to address conceiving. 35 counselling have already been carried out (22 females, 13 males); 4 of these counselling were televisits. 15 were couple counselling. The topics that patients needed to address during counselling were sexuality (16, 45.7%), fertility (22, 60.0%), contraception (11, 31%), conceiving/pregnancy/lactation (20, 571%), drugs used for their rheumatic disease (18, 51.4%). 7 patients were referred to other specialists, such as gynecologist (4 women), urologist (1 man), sexologist (2 patients). 2 patients were referred to other specialists. 12 women were referred to our rheumatologic-gynecologic multidisciplinary clinic for broodiness. Most of the patients, as shown in Figure 1, reported an optimal satisfaction.

Conclusion: Reproductive health counseling conducted by dedicated rheumatologists, in-person or remotely, has proven to be an effective method for conveying useful information and providing appropriate guidance to male and female patients. The level of patients’ satisfaction was found to be high, both in terms of the quality of the information received and the positive impact on reducing fear and stress in relation to these issues, suggesting to implement this tool to improve the management and the quality of life of patients living with rhematic diseases.

REFERENCES: NIL.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of patients. CTD, connective tissue disease; RA, rheumatoid arthritis; SpA, spondyloarthropathies; b-DMARDs, biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs; cs-DMARDs, conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs; ts-DMARDs, targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs.

Acknowledgements: NIL.

Disclosure of Interests: None declared.