The experiences and thoughts of Turkish family physicians about COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study

Abstract

Background

Efforts to contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus would fall short without strong primary health care.

Objectives

In this study, we aimed to determine the experiences, views and suggestions of family physicians regarding their roles, primary care health systems’ preparedness and the challenges/needs for a better organisation during the pandemic via in-depth exploration.

Methods

Twenty-one family physicians working in different cities of Turkey participated in semi-structured interviews between 15/08/2020-21/01/2021. Convenience sampling was used. We did this qualitative study through interviews by telephone. Participants were asked seven open-ended questions. Thematic analysis was used, which included reading the transcript, identifying significant phrases and formulating meanings and validating meanings through research team discussions to reach consensus, identifying themes.

Results

Ten of the participants were female and the average age of the participants was 39.5 (SD = 10.5) years. Twelve of the family physicians are specialists in family medicine. Four themes were identified: role of primary care in the pandemic, pandemic preparedness of primary care, challenges of working in primary care centres during the COVID-19 pandemics, and approaches to future pandemics.

Conclusion

Our study showed that, despite unprepared primary care and undefined roles of family physicians in pandemic planning, family physicians played a significant role in pandemic management.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• family physicians’ experiences
• general practice/family medicine
• pandemic
• qualitative designs and methods

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Ethical approval was obtained from the Hacettepe University Non-Interventional Research Ethics Committee ((Approval date/number: 23.06.2020/GO 20/634).

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Box 1 Open-ended questions

• What is the role of family physicians in pandemic management?

• How was the readiness of family physicians in our country during the pandemic process?

• What should be the readiness of family physicians in the pandemic process in our country?

• Have you had any problems with the COVID-19 positive patient follow-up (patient and follow-up system)? What?

• What do you think are the factors that affect family physicians to take the planned actions (compliance with algorithms, referral, diagnosis and follow-up) regarding the pandemic?

• In your experience, what were the positive/negative differences of working in a family health centre during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the second and third levels?

• If you face another pandemic process in the future, will your approach as a family doctor change, what do you pay attention to in pandemic management?