Impact of Coronavirus Infectious Disease Pandemic on Surgical Patients of a Government Medical College in Northern India: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Like elsewhere Government in India took some drastic steps including nationwide lockdown, conversion of fully functional hospitals into coronavirus infectious disease (COVID) facilities to address the COVID 19 pandemic. As the impact of these measures on surgical patients is little studied in India, this study was undertaken to evaluate and assess the hardships of surgical patients at a teaching hospital in Northern India. Materials and Methods: This study included all patients who got discharged from surgery ward at the study site in March 2020. For data collection patients were contacted telephonically and a pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used to assess the logistic, financial and healthcare related concerns/barriers these patients experienced after their discharge in seeking medical care and anxiety levels related to their health and lockdown at the time of interview. Results: We could contact 63 patients out of maximum possible 85 patients (Response rate = 74.1%). A total of 26 patients (41.3%) visited health-care facilities other than the study hospital amounting to a total of 44 visits. Only 14 participants (53.8%) faced no difficulty whereas 12 (46.2%) experienced at least some difficulty in visiting these facilities/providers to receive health care. Almost all of them (23 participants, 88.5%) had to spend more time while over two fifth (11 participants, 42.3%) reported of spending more money than usual during these visits. Over a third (20 patients, 38.5%) experienced at least some anxiety while almost half of them (48.1%) were stressed more than usual with a significant 7.7% participants experiencing severe stress. Conclusion: There was hardship experienced by significant number of surgical patients during the initial lockdown phases in India. We recommend more research -both qualitative and quantitative -to better establish the impact of stringent measures on care of surgical patients.