Alberta family physicians’ willingness to work during an influenza pandemic: a cross-sectional study

James A Dickinson,Craig Pearce,Leah Ricketson,Gisoo Bani-Adam,Tyler Williamson,Emily Medd,Sandy Berzins

doi:10.1186/1447-056x-12-3

Abstract

ObjectiveEffective pandemic responses rely on frontline healthcare workers continuing to work despite increased risk to themselves. Our objective was to investigate Alberta family physicians willingness to work during an influenza pandemic. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Alberta prior to the fall wave of the H1N1 epidemic. Participants: 192 participants from a random sample of 1000 Alberta family physicians stratified by region. Main Outcome Measures: Willingness to work through difficult scenarios created by an influenza epidemic.ResultsThe corrected response rate was 22%. The most physicians who responded were willing to continue working through some scenarios caused by a pandemic, but in other circumstances less than 50% would continue. Men were more willing to continue working than women. In some situations South African and British trained physicians were more willing to continue working than other groups.ConclusionsAlthough many physicians intend to maintain their practices in the event of a pandemic, in some circumstances fewer are willing to work. Pandemic preparation requires ensuring a workforce is available. Healthcare systems must provide frontline healthcare workers with the support and resources they need to enable them to continue providing care.

Highlights

The pandemic H1N1 virus first emerged in April 2009 and rapidly spread throughout the world [1]
To examine the representativeness of the survey respondents, the gender distribution by region of primary practice of those responding was compared to the gender distribution obtained from the list of family physicians from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta using a two-sample proportion test
If you had to work with untrained volunteers or workers brought out of retirement. These results suggest that during a severe influenza outbreak more than half of responding Alberta physicians may be available and willing to work; in a severe pandemic, these numbers may drop due to their own illness, or unforeseen circumstances

Summary

Introduction

The pandemic H1N1 virus first emerged in April 2009 and rapidly spread throughout the world [1]. The Canadian Pandemic Plan suggests that during a severe pandemic, family physicians may be required to work in triage centers where they would make decisions about which patients to treat [3]. A severe pandemic may cause colleagues and physicians’ families to sicken or die, and disruption of services such as childcare or transport (which would lead to difficulty with staff and supplies). These scenarios challenge physicians’ duty to care. There had been an continuing medical education program on pandemic planning offered in Calgary two years prior that was not offered in Edmonton [7], so we hypothesized that there would be differences between the physician groups in these otherwise similar cities

Methods

Results

Conclusion