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COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave

General practitioners (GPs), already in a profession with a high workload, have been at the frontline of providing COVID-19-related healthcare in addition to routine care. Our study examined the impact of pandemic-related consultations and changes in practice organization on GPs’ current workload an...

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Autores principales: Schrimpf, Anne, Bleckwenn, Markus, Braesigk, Annett
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9914234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36766895
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11030320
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author Schrimpf, Anne
Bleckwenn, Markus
Braesigk, Annett
author_facet Schrimpf, Anne
Bleckwenn, Markus
Braesigk, Annett
author_sort Schrimpf, Anne
collection PubMed
description General practitioners (GPs), already in a profession with a high workload, have been at the frontline of providing COVID-19-related healthcare in addition to routine care. Our study examined the impact of pandemic-related consultations and changes in practice organization on GPs’ current workload and provision of healthcare in summer 2021 (May 2021–July 2021) and early 2022 (January 2022–February 2022). In total, 143 German GPs participated in an online survey in the summer of 2021. Of these, 51 GPs participated in the follow-up survey in 2022. Most GPs perceived an increase in consultation frequency, consultation times, and workload since the pandemic outbreak. Increased consultation times were related to the reduced provision of medical care to other patients with chronic diseases. More SARS-CoV-2 vaccination consultations were associated with reduced home visits, acute consultation times, and cancer screenings. A quarter of GPs considered leaving their job. Pandemic-related bureaucracy, restricted access to therapy and rehabilitation services specialized on COVID-19, unreliable vaccine deliveries, mandatory telematics-infrastructure implementation, and frequent changes in official regulations were the main reasons reported for dissatisfaction. Our results provide insights into how the pandemic continues to burden GPs’ work routines and how better working conditions in times of high demand could be achieved in future pandemics.
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spelling pubmed-99142342023-02-11 COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave Schrimpf, Anne Bleckwenn, Markus Braesigk, Annett Healthcare (Basel) Article General practitioners (GPs), already in a profession with a high workload, have been at the frontline of providing COVID-19-related healthcare in addition to routine care. Our study examined the impact of pandemic-related consultations and changes in practice organization on GPs’ current workload and provision of healthcare in summer 2021 (May 2021–July 2021) and early 2022 (January 2022–February 2022). In total, 143 German GPs participated in an online survey in the summer of 2021. Of these, 51 GPs participated in the follow-up survey in 2022. Most GPs perceived an increase in consultation frequency, consultation times, and workload since the pandemic outbreak. Increased consultation times were related to the reduced provision of medical care to other patients with chronic diseases. More SARS-CoV-2 vaccination consultations were associated with reduced home visits, acute consultation times, and cancer screenings. A quarter of GPs considered leaving their job. Pandemic-related bureaucracy, restricted access to therapy and rehabilitation services specialized on COVID-19, unreliable vaccine deliveries, mandatory telematics-infrastructure implementation, and frequent changes in official regulations were the main reasons reported for dissatisfaction. Our results provide insights into how the pandemic continues to burden GPs’ work routines and how better working conditions in times of high demand could be achieved in future pandemics. MDPI 2023-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9914234/ /pubmed/36766895 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11030320 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schrimpf, Anne
Bleckwenn, Markus
Braesigk, Annett
COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title_full COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title_fullStr COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title_short COVID-19 Continues to Burden General Practitioners: Impact on Workload, Provision of Care, and Intention to Leave
title_sort covid-19 continues to burden general practitioners: impact on workload, provision of care, and intention to leave
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9914234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36766895
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11030320
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