The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Oncology Patient Management

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way cancer patients should be managed. Using published literature on best practices on oncology patient management, we developed checklists to establish which recommendations were followed and differences between healthcare staff and institutions in a local health unit (overseeing two regional hospitals and 14 primary Healthcare Centers) in an interior region in Portugal. Checklists were delivered and completed by 15 physicians, 18 nurses and 5 pharmacists working at the Hospitals, and 29 physicians and 46 nurses from primary healthcare centers. Hospital staff do not show statistically significant differences regarding most proposed recommendations for the oncology clinical pathway, human resources, treatments, patient management and service management. Primary healthcare centers seem to follow a similar trend. As a local health unit, general recommendations for Oncology Patient Management show statistically significantly different values on education of suspected cases, identification, isolation procedures and samples collection; extension of work schedules; and education on cancer patient and COVID-19 positive referral procedures. All the checklists indicated good-to-high internal consistency. Our analysis showed cohesive work between groups regarding control and prevention of sources of infection; therefore, it is considered the highest priority to ensure that all other services, including oncology, continue functioning. Patient management measures such as adjustments in treatments, analysis, patient care, referrals and emergencies were not ranked higher by responders.