Primary care of Ukrainian refugees

Abstract

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, more than 7.6million people from Ukraine have been registered as refugees in European countries. In Germany, the number is estimated to be more than 1million. These refugees may have different health needs than German patients due to differences in the health care system, disease prevalence, preventive measures, health behavior, and experiences of flight. However, general practitioners (GPs) have hardly been prepared for the contact. For the first time, challenges in the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and support needs of German GPs were determined. In July and August 2022, across-sectional study among GPs in Germany was conducted using an online survey. A total of 82GPs participated with aresponse rate of 16.0%; 52of the participating GPs had treated Ukrainian refugees in the previous 2weeks. In all, 75.0% of them reported difficulties or peculiarities in care, especially in communication (61.5%), due to lack of information about previous illnesses (34.6%), and expectations of services to be provided (30.8%). Of the 82participants, 59.8% reported aneed for multilingual information for patients, especially about the German health care system, help with mental health problems, contact points, and differences in the use of medications. Information for the practice team is needed in 37.8% of cases, especially on possibilities in case of language barriers, vaccination coverage in Ukraine, and dealing with missing vaccination records as well as drug lists. Due to the new situation of Ukrainian refugees in Germany and the mentioned barriers, GPs should be supported in care. Information for practice teams as well as their networking with psychotherapeutic offers, contact points, drug databases, and regional interpreter services are urgently needed. However, multilingual information for Ukrainian patients should be disseminated in order to relieve the burden on practices, which have been under great strain, and to ensure continuity and quality of care.