Women's College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Family and Community Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
BMJ Open. 2022 May 9;12(5):e056868. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056868.
We sought to understand patients' care-seeking behaviours early in the pandemic, their use and views of different virtual care modalities, and whether these differed by sociodemographic factors.
We conducted a multisite cross-sectional patient experience survey at 13 academic primary care teaching practices between May and June 2020. An anonymised link to an electronic survey was sent to a subset of patients with a valid email address on file; sampling was based on birth month. For each question, the proportion of respondents who selected each response was calculated, followed by a comparison by sociodemographic characteristics using χ tests.
In total, 7532 participants responded to the survey. Most received care from their primary care clinic during the pandemic (67.7%, 5068/7482), the majority via phone (82.5%, 4195/5086). Among those who received care, 30.53% (1509/4943) stated that they delayed seeking care because of the pandemic. Most participants reported a high degree of comfort with phone (92.4%, 3824/4139), video (95.2%, 238/250) and email or messaging (91.3%, 794/870). However, those reporting difficulty making ends meet, poor or fair health and arriving in Canada in the last 10 years reported lower levels of comfort with virtual care and fewer wanted their practice to continue offering virtual options after the pandemic.
Our study suggests that newcomers, people living with a lower income and those reporting poor or fair health have a stronger preference and comfort for in-person primary care. Further research should explore potential barriers to virtual care and how these could be addressed.
我们试图了解大流行早期患者的就医行为、他们对不同虚拟护理模式的使用和看法，以及这些是否因社会人口因素而有所不同。
我们在 2020 年 5 月至 6 月期间在 13 个学术初级保健教学实践中进行了一项多地点横断面患者体验调查。将一个匿名的电子调查链接发送到一个有有效电子邮件地址的患者子集；采样基于出生月份。对于每个问题，计算选择每个回答的受访者比例，然后使用 χ 检验按社会人口特征进行比较。
共有 7532 名参与者对调查做出了回应。大多数人在大流行期间从他们的初级保健诊所接受治疗（67.7%，5068/7482），大多数人通过电话（82.5%，4195/5086）。在接受治疗的患者中，30.53%（1509/4943）表示由于大流行而延迟就医。大多数参与者表示对电话（92.4%，3824/4139）、视频（95.2%，238/250）和电子邮件或消息（91.3%，794/870）有很高的舒适度。然而，那些报告难以维持生计、健康状况较差或一般以及在过去 10 年抵达加拿大的人对虚拟护理的舒适度较低，并且在大流行后更希望他们的诊所继续提供虚拟选择。
我们的研究表明，新来者、收入较低的人和报告健康状况较差或一般的人更倾向于和愿意接受面对面的初级保健。进一步的研究应探讨虚拟护理的潜在障碍以及如何解决这些障碍。
