ABSTRACT
Background and purpose The lockdowns and restrictions enforced periodically during the COVID-19 pandemic posed a serious challenge for non-COVID care, especially in diabetes where telediabetes, the utilization of telemedicine consultations for diabetic care, became more necessary than ever before. Although studies have shed light on the perception of patients, there is a paucity of studies from the perspective of healthcare providers, especially in an Indian context. Moving forward, it is imperative to understand the perspectives of telediabetes providers in this domain. Hence, a nationwide survey was carried out to assess providers' practices and perspectives towards using telemedicine for providing diabetes care in India during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Methods An online questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study was carried out involving diabetes care physicians. The study tool was developed after the identification of broad themes and constructs from published literature, national guidelines, and diabetes experts' recommendations, following which, it was validated by six experts and pilot-tested. An online open survey, hosted on a professional platform, was circulated to internists, endocrinologists, and other diabetes care physicians of various institutions, hospitals, and clinics from both public and private sectors across the country through individual and group emails and various mobile messenger services. Results Out of the 239 doctors who responded to the survey, 195 (81.6%) had provided telediabetes services since the COVID-19 outbreak, and 84.1% were actively providing teleconsultations for diabetes at the time of the survey. The majority of participants (63.2%) were private practitioners. Telediabetes engagement was 3.5 hours per day at the peak of the pandemic and reduced significantly to one hour after the end of the pandemic. Video calling was the most preferred modality for consultation, whereas messaging services were preferred for input from the patients. Printed prescription images followed by text messages were the common modalities for sending treatment advice. The overall perception towards telediabetes was positive (50.1%). Most physicians reported being reasonably and somewhat aware (65.6% and 20.5%, respectively) of telemedicine practice guidelines but were not sure about the extent of compliance. Conclusions Our study sheds light not only on the utilization of telediabetes from physicians' perspectives and practices but also on its acceptability while identifying areas requiring clarity and focus moving forward.
ABSTRACT
Studies report an association between the expression of HLA alleles and lamotrigine (LTG)-induced Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS). This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the association between HLA alleles and LTG-induced SJS in different populations. Two alleles, HLA-B*0702 and HLA-C*0702, were deemed to be protective; five alleles, HLA-B*1502, HLA-B*4403, HLA-A*2402, CYP2C19*2 and HLA-B*38, may play a role in LTG-induced SJS, for which only data studying HLA-B*1502 could be extracted. The pooled odds ratio of 2.88, 95% CI of 1.60-5.17 and p-value of 0.0004 establish the presence of HLA-B*1502 as a major risk factor for the development of LTG-induced SJS/toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Although multiple alleles that may play a role in the development of LTG-induced SJS/TEN were identified, the expression of the risk alleles may be ancestry-specific, and genetic screening is warranted for preventing this life-threatening adverse drug reaction.
