Anxiety due to COVID-19 and impact on patients receiving chemotherapy in an inner-city minority population.

Abstract

108 Background: Cook County Health (CCH) is one of the largest public safety net hospitals in the United States. COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected patient care. Although hospitals took measures to keep patients safe, there is a general level of anxiety in patients about coming to the hospital. This study was undertaken to see the impact of COVID-19 and anxiety in patients actively receiving infusional therapy at our institution. Methods: All patients coming to our Infusion Center were offered an anonymous written questionnaire. The survey was given for 10 calendar days in June 2020 after Chicago moved into Phase-3 of re-opening that indicated significant control of COVID-19. The survey was offered in English, Spanish and Polish. It also included the GAD scale for anxiety assessment. Statistics were done using the t-test and z-test. Results: A total of 107 patients completed the survey. About 55% were women with 67% patients over 50 years old. Of the 90 people that specified their race, 44% were black and 42% were Hispanic, 9% whites, and 5% others. Overall 68% had high school or less level of education with Hispanics having significantly lower education than blacks. About 30% had testing for COVID-19 with 81% being negative. Treatment interruption occurred in 39% patients. Despite 75% finding our infusion center extremely or very safe for treatments 28% still felt moderately or severely anxious on the GAD scale. Blacks had similar levels of anxiety compared to Hispanics in March 2020 but no significant change over the months compared to Hispanics who had a significant reduction in anxiety over time. Blacks also had significantly higher rates of moderate to severe anxiety on the GAD scale (33%), while no Hispanic had severe anxiety and 18% had moderate anxiety. Despite a higher level of anxiety, blacks were less likely to have treatment interruptions compared to Hispanics (Table). Conclusions: Despite low levels of anxiety, Hispanics were more likely to have treatment interruptions during the COVID pandemic compared to blacks who had a higher level of anxiety but lower levels of treatment interruptions. The cause of this may be the level of education and awareness between the groups. However, overall there is still a significant amount of anxiety in the inner-city minority population regarding COVID-19. [Table: see text]