Follow-Up Adherence for Patients with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-Associated Uveitis at a Tertiary Care Center

To describe the frequency of delayed and missed visits for Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA)-uveitis patients and explore the demographic factors associated with delay in clinical follow-up.

This was a retrospective chart review of patients with > 2 appointments for JIA-associated uveitis between August 1984 and October 2022. Patient visits were classified as adherent, delayed, or missed if they followed up within the recommended follow-up time, outside the recommended follow-up time window, or more than 3 years after their last visit or never.

There were 106 patients with a mean age of 15.5 years (range, 1.6-50.4). A total of 3169 visits over a cumulative follow-up time of 899.4 years (mean: 8.6 years of follow-up) occurred with 71 visits (2.2%) missed and 424 visits (13.4%) delayed. Sixty-nine patients (65.1%) had at least one delayed visit. Demographic and uveitis disease characteristics were all nonsignificant factors for a delayed or missed visit. Although having military-sponsored insurance was significant (P < 0.01), all other insurance types were not significantly associated with having a delayed visit.

Overall, the proportion of delayed and missed visits was quite low, even during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic. Although patients with military insurance appear to be at increased risk for delayed follow-up visits, other insurances, distance to clinic, and demographic characteristics did not appear to be associated with delayed or missed follow-ups.