Systematic review protocol exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wellbeing of general practitioners

  1. L. Jefferson
  2. S. Golder
  3. V. Dale
  4. H. Essex
  5. E. McHugh
  6. K. Bloor

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Abstract

Background

Over recent years chronic stress and burnout have been reported by doctors working in general practice in the UK NHS and internationally. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed general practitioners’ working lives – adding potential pressures from avoiding infection and addressing pent-up demand for care, but also changing processes such as rapidly taking up remote consultations. To date, there has been a focus on exploring the impact of the pandemic on the wellbeing of hospital clinicians. No registered systematic reviews currently focus on exploring the impact of the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of general practitioners.

Aims and objectives

To synthesise the current international evidence base exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health and wellbeing of general practitioners, and which factors are associated with their reported mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic.

Methods

In this paper we report a systematic review protocol, following PRISMA guidance. In our search strategy we will identify primary research studies or systematic reviews exploring the mental health and wellbeing of general practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic in four databases (MEDLINE, Embase, PsychInfo and Medrxiv) and Google Scholar. We will hand-search reference lists and grey literature.

Two reviewers will undertake all stages including study selection, data extraction and quality assessment, with arbitration by a third reviewer where necessary. We will use standardised quality assessment tools to ensure transparency and reduce bias in quality assessment. Depending on the quality of included studies, we may undertake a sensitivity analysis by excluding studies from narrative synthesis that are rated as low quality using the checklists.

We will describe the findings across studies using narrative thematic data synthesis, and if sufficiently homogenous data are identified, we will pool quantitative findings through meta-analysis.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.05.21261627: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: An initial scoping exercise, searching PROSPERO-registered studies and contacting study authors to avoid duplication in this rapidly expanding research field, revealed no existing reviews with a focus on general practitioner mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    BlindingEach reviewer will be blind to the other’s assessment.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    We will search the following databases; MEDLINE, Embase, PsychInfo and, owing to the large body of COVID-19 literature being published in this space, Medrxiv and Google Scholar will also be searched.
    MEDLINE
    suggested: (MEDLINE, RRID:SCR_002185)
    Embase
    suggested: (EMBASE, RRID:SCR_001650)
    Google Scholar
    suggested: (Google Scholar, RRID:SCR_008878)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.05.21261627v1 on medRxiv