Prepared and highly committed despite the risk of COVID-19 infection: a cross-sectional survey of primary care physicians’ concerns and coping strategies in Singapore
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Abstract
Background
Primary care physicians (PCPs) are first points-of-contact between suspected cases and the healthcare system in the current COVID-19 pandemic. This study examines PCPs’ concerns, impact on personal lives and work, and level of pandemic preparedness in the context of COVID-19 in Singapore. We also examine factors and coping strategies that PCPs have used to manage stress during the outbreak.
Methods
Two hundred and sixteen PCPs actively practicing in either a public or private clinic were cluster sampled via email invitation from three primary care organizations in Singapore from 6th to 29th March 2020. Participants completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire consisting of items on work- and non-work-related concerns, impact on personal and work life, perceived pandemic preparedness, stress-reduction factors, and personal coping strategies related to COVID-19.
Results
A total of 158 questionnaires were usable for analyses. PCPs perceived themselves to be at high risk of COVID-19 infection (89.9%), and a source of risk (74.7%) and concern (71.5%) to loved ones. PCPs reported acceptance of these risks (91.1%) and the need to care for COVID-19 patients (85.4%). Overall perceived pandemic preparedness was extremely high (75.9 to 89.9%). PCPs prioritized availability of personal protective equipment, strict infection prevention guidelines, accessible information about COVID-19, and well-being of their colleagues and family as the most effective stress management factors.
Conclusions
PCPs continue to serve willingly on the frontlines of this pandemic despite the high perception of risk to themselves and loved ones. Healthcare organizations should continue to support PCPs by managing both their psychosocial (e.g. stress management) and professional (e.g. pandemic preparedness) needs.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.06.20093757: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethics approval: Ethical approval to conduct this study was provided by the National University of Singapore’s Institutional Review Board (Reference Code S-20-071) in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Consent: Informed consent to participate was obtained from all participants.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses: All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22.0(22). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results…SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.06.20093757: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Ethics approval: Ethical approval to conduct this study was provided by the National University of Singapore’s Institutional Review Board (Reference Code S-20-071) in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Consent: Informed consent to participate was obtained from all participants.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses: All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22.0(22). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations and implications for future research: As this study was designed to meet the expediencies of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, several key limitations must be taken into consideration. Most significantly, the generalisability of our findings is limited by the non-random sampling strategy employed and the low response rate. This was perhaps expected due to the frontline and high intensity nature of PCPs’ roles as outbreak control efforts continue to implemented in Singapore, and we recognize that our findings may only represent PCPs who were able to find the time to respond amidst their hectic schedules. We also recognize that the quantitative descriptive nature of the present study could mean that PCPs may have had other concerns that were not included in our questionnaire. We were also unable to qualitatively probe the stress-reduction and coping strategies to understand the opinions of PCPs on how the government or healthcare institutions might be able to better support their needs. Future studies could seek to overcome some of these limitations by implementing a more rigorous, probabilistic sampling strategy and utilizing mixed-methods designs to include qualitative interviews with PCPs. Nonetheless, the feasibility of these suggestions will inevitably depend on the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore and around the world; social distancing measures and overwhelmed healthcare systems, for example, may prove to be immense challenges in conducting researc...
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.
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