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Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study
BACKGROUND: Attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have led to radical reorganisations of health care systems worldwide. General practitioners (GPs) provide the vast majority of patient care, and knowledge of their experiences with providing care for regular health issues during a pandemic is scar...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170055/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34078281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01468-y |
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author | Due, Tina Drud Thorsen, Thorkil Andersen, Julie Høgsgaard |
author_facet | Due, Tina Drud Thorsen, Thorkil Andersen, Julie Høgsgaard |
author_sort | Due, Tina Drud |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have led to radical reorganisations of health care systems worldwide. General practitioners (GPs) provide the vast majority of patient care, and knowledge of their experiences with providing care for regular health issues during a pandemic is scarce. Hence, in a Danish context we explored how GPs experienced reorganising their work in an attempt to uphold sufficient patient care while contributing to minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Further, in relation to this, we examined what guided GPs’ choices between telephone, video and face-to-face consultations. METHODS: This study consisted of qualitative interviews with 13 GPs. They were interviewed twice, approximately three months apart in the initial phase of the pandemic, and they took daily notes for 20 days. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and inductively analysed. RESULTS: The GPs re-organised their clinical work profoundly. Most consultations were converted to video or telephone, postponed or cancelled. The use of video first rose, but soon declined, once again replaced by an increased use of face-to-face consultations. When choosing between consultation forms, the GPs took into account the need to minimise the risk of COVID-19, the central guidelines, and their own preference for face-to-face consultations. There were variations over time and between the GPs regarding which health issues were dealt with by using video and/or the telephone. For some health issues, the GPs generally deemed it acceptable to use video or telephone, postpone or cancel appointments for a short term, and in a crisis situation. They experienced relational and technical limitations with video consultation, while diagnostic uncertainty was not regarded as a prominent issue CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates how the GPs experienced telephone and video consultations as being useful in a pandemic situation when face-to-face consultations had to be severely restricted. The GPs did, however, identify several limitations similar to those known in non-pandemic times. The weighing of pros and cons and their willingness to use these alternatives shifted and generally diminished when face-to-face consultations were once again deemed viable. In case of future pandemics, such alternatives seem valuable, at least for a short term. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8170055 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81700552021-06-02 Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study Due, Tina Drud Thorsen, Thorkil Andersen, Julie Høgsgaard BMC Fam Pract Research BACKGROUND: Attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have led to radical reorganisations of health care systems worldwide. General practitioners (GPs) provide the vast majority of patient care, and knowledge of their experiences with providing care for regular health issues during a pandemic is scarce. Hence, in a Danish context we explored how GPs experienced reorganising their work in an attempt to uphold sufficient patient care while contributing to minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Further, in relation to this, we examined what guided GPs’ choices between telephone, video and face-to-face consultations. METHODS: This study consisted of qualitative interviews with 13 GPs. They were interviewed twice, approximately three months apart in the initial phase of the pandemic, and they took daily notes for 20 days. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and inductively analysed. RESULTS: The GPs re-organised their clinical work profoundly. Most consultations were converted to video or telephone, postponed or cancelled. The use of video first rose, but soon declined, once again replaced by an increased use of face-to-face consultations. When choosing between consultation forms, the GPs took into account the need to minimise the risk of COVID-19, the central guidelines, and their own preference for face-to-face consultations. There were variations over time and between the GPs regarding which health issues were dealt with by using video and/or the telephone. For some health issues, the GPs generally deemed it acceptable to use video or telephone, postpone or cancel appointments for a short term, and in a crisis situation. They experienced relational and technical limitations with video consultation, while diagnostic uncertainty was not regarded as a prominent issue CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates how the GPs experienced telephone and video consultations as being useful in a pandemic situation when face-to-face consultations had to be severely restricted. The GPs did, however, identify several limitations similar to those known in non-pandemic times. The weighing of pros and cons and their willingness to use these alternatives shifted and generally diminished when face-to-face consultations were once again deemed viable. In case of future pandemics, such alternatives seem valuable, at least for a short term. BioMed Central 2021-06-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8170055/ /pubmed/34078281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01468-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Due, Tina Drud Thorsen, Thorkil Andersen, Julie Høgsgaard Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title | Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title_full | Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title_fullStr | Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title_full_unstemmed | Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title_short | Use of alternative consultation forms in Danish general practice in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
title_sort | use of alternative consultation forms in danish general practice in the initial phase of the covid-19 pandemic – a qualitative study |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170055/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34078281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01468-y |
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