Abstract
COVID-19 exerted a strong impact on the Italian healthcare systems, which in turn resulted in a reduction in the citizens’ trust towards healthcare authorities. Moreover, the focused attention on the typical COVID-19 symptoms (fever, cough) has also impacted the social representation of health priorities, potentially reducing the perceived importance and severity of other symptoms. This study aimed to determine the association of general-practitioner (GP) contact with various symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in Cremona, an Italian city at the very epicentre of the pandemic. Between April and June 2020, an anonymous survey was completed by 2161 respondents. Logistic-regression analyses were used to examine the associations of GP contact with sociodemographic characteristics and the presence of symptoms. Of the 2161 respondents (43.5% female, 75.0% aged less than 55 years), 959 (44.4%) reported experiencing various symptoms and 33.3% contacted a GP. GP contact was significantly associated with poor appetite (OR, 2.42; 95% CI 1.63 to 3.62; p < 0.001), taste dysfunctions (OR 1.67; 95% CI 1.20 to 2.34; p < 0.001) and sleepiness during the day (OR 4.15; 95% CI 2.13 to 8.09; p = 0.002). None of the gastrointestinal symptoms resulted in significantly increasing the likelihood of contacting a GP. This study offers a unique observation of citizens’ attitudes and behaviours in early symptom communication/detection during the initial peak of the Italian COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Introduction iationsThe COVID-19 pandemic exerted a strong impact on healthcare systems, both from a financial [1] and an organizational point of view [2]
Only about one out of three participants reported contacting a GP after feeling sick. This data is quite surprising due to the peculiar epidemiological situation portrayed by the study: in early 2020, at the time of the data collection, Italy and in particular Cremona were at the epicentre of the pandemic, with a peak number of deaths and of hospitalized people and a general situation of psychological alarm shared by citizens and healthcare professionals alike [21,24–26]
This study offers a unique observation of citizens’, volunteers’, and healthcare professionals’ attitudes and behaviours in early symptom communication/detection during the initial peak of the Italian COVID-19 pandemic in the geographical area of Cremona (Italy)
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic exerted a strong impact on healthcare systems, both from a financial [1] and an organizational point of view [2]. Regardless of their dedication and effort, healthcare operators all over the world found difficulty in coping with COVID-19-related distress due to the increased job demands [3]. Among the various consequences that these increased demands had on healthcare operators’ health and work performance [4], recent studies showed that due to these increased demands, healthcare workers had to reduce the attention they could pay to diseases other than COVID-19 [5,6]. From the perspective of the public opinion, the media narrative that has strictly focused on the COVID-19 emergency has impacted the social representation of health priorities, which in turn has changed patients’ attitudes towards their disease management and their perception of health risks. The emotional impact of the pandemic, Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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