COVID-19: a study about the impact of coronavirus on physicians of La Plata, Argentina
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Abstract
Background
In Argentina, the burden of COVID-19 on health systems and physicians was substantial with difficulties on daily triage decisions which have to be made in the context of grave shortages of basic equipment and consumables.
Purpose
this study was performed to understand what physicians were experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic in La Plata (capital city of Buenos Aires province, Argentina).
Methods
A cross-sectional study was performed; a questionnaire was sent by e-mail to physicians who work in this city during November 2020. The questionnaire was made based on Medscape US and International Physicians’ COVID-19 Experience Report: Risk, Burnout, Loneliness.
Statistical analysis
test for normality was performed employing the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test while Chi-square test of independence to examine the relationship between sex and workplace with nominal variables. For categorical variables, Kendall’s tau correlation was performed to test for independence. ANOVA was developed to examine differences between physician’s age. Statistical significance was set to p < 0.05 in all cases. All statistical analysis was done employing SPSS Statistics, Version 24 (IBM, USA).
Results
203 physicians answered the questionnaire; the majority of physicians (96%) considered stressful their experience during pandemic and reported distress episodes being for more than 60% the most stressful of their practices, 30% presented depression and were medically treated, while 32.7% felt loneliness with 4 physicians with suicidal thoughts.
Conclusion
The results highlight the need to protect the psychological well-being of the healthcare community, and to invest resources to significantly promote the mental health of professionals.
Article activity feed
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.11.05.21265969: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The research was approved by the Medical Bioethics Committee, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National University of La Plata, Argentina, reference N°101/21.
Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, data were anonymized to preserve confidentiality.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis No power analysis was performed. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analysis was done employing SPSS Statistics, Version 24 (IBM, USA). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.11.05.21265969: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The research was approved by the Medical Bioethics Committee, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National University of La Plata, Argentina, reference N°101/21.
Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, data were anonymized to preserve confidentiality.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis No power analysis was performed. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All statistical analysis was done employing SPSS Statistics, Version 24 (IBM, USA). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The small sample of the survey may be considered as a limitation of this research. At present, COVID-19 pandemic is getting worse with a record number of incidence and deaths; about 12.7% of the total population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and only 1.8% fully vaccinated (https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/argentina, accessed 23 April 2021); in addition, the authorities renewed restrictions.
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.
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