Indonesian Anesthesiologists Preparedness for COVID-19 Surge Capacity in the Early Pandemic

Background: Anesthesiologists play a crucial role in every disaster event, including biological disasters by COVID-19. This medical specialty should be prepared for a surge in patients due to a pandemic. The present study aims to evaluate the preparedness of anesthesiologists in facing the surge in the number of COVID-19 patients at the beginning of the pandemic in Indonesia. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study using an online survey to Anesthesiologists in Indonesia, with snowballing sampling method. A distribution frequency was used to describe the univariate analysis results of the variables. Pearson correlation was used to test the correlation between perceived resource adequacy/availability and perceived preparedness to face the surge. Results: A total of 141 anesthesiologists participated in our online survey; 47% of responders said they do not have enough staff, while 53% said that their staff did not have sufficient knowledge of handling the critical COVID-19 patients. They also reported limited resources, especially the limited isolation space and N95 masks. The correlation analysis indicated a strong and significant relationship between limited resources and the preparedness of anesthesiologists. Conclusion: At the beginning of the pandemic, Indonesian Anesthesiologists felt that they still had very limited resources, leading to unpreparedness to deal with the surge in the number of COVID-19 patients with critical conditions.