Continuum of Care for Diabetic Patients during COVID-19 Pandemic in Primary Health Care, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Family Medicine department,Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University.

2 Family Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Shebin Elkom, Menoufia, Egypt

3 Family Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Helwan University, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected health services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) especially those vulnerable and requiring regular or long-term care. The aim of this study is to gain insights on the effect of COVID 19 pandemic lock down on accessibility of health services and health care of diabetic patients in a primary health care.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a rural area on 400 diabetic participants. A pre-tested semi-structured multidimensional questionnaire in the Arabic language was utilized in the study. It consists of four parts; the first part for the Sociodemographic data, The second part for status of the clinical diabetic investigations during the lockdown, the third part was for the medication adherence and the fourth part entailed questions pertaining to barriers for primary health care visit.

Results: About half of the participants suffered from difficulty in healthcare service accessibility. The most significant predictors were older age, female gender, lower education level, internet use, low and middle socioeconomic standard and depending on private healthcare facilities. Costly services followed by limited work hours, fear of infection, difficulty to use internet were the main challenges they face during their doctor visit. The more difficult the accessibility, the lower the adherence to medication. Telemedicine was the adopted alternative during the pandemic.

Conclusion: Medical health services in primary health care were extremely affected during the pandemic and consequently medication adherence. Telemedicine was used as a coping strategy to overcome limited accessibility to DM related healthcare services during COVID-19 lockdown

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