How have the obstetricians and gynecologists struggled in the clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract

Aim: As all branches of the medicine, the obstetrical and gynaecological clinical approach has been greatly affected by the pandemic. In our study, we aimed to reveal the effect of the pandemic on current obstetrics and gynaecologic clinical approach and urgency/semi-urgency evaluations of physicians related with both obstetrical and gynaecological cases. Methods: The obstetricians in Turkey from different hospitals and clinics have completed our online questionnaire-based survey using ‘docs.google.com’. The survey questionnaire was created in three sections: Demographic, occupational analysis and thoughts about outbreak, clinical approach scale and clinical urgency scale. SPSS 22 program was used to analyze the validity and reliability of the scales. Results: It was concluded that the pandemic process have affected the clinical approach. The effect degree was 3.79,3.15,3.72 respectively at clinical effect, clinical functioning and struggle and prevention.The specialists regardless of the year in the occupation were more affected than research assistants in terms of clinical effect (p=0.017) and also postponed obstetrical (p=0.000) and gynaecological (p=0.000) conditions more frequently. As the effect of the pandemic on clinical functioning increases, the delay of gynaecological cases increases. With the postponement of obstetrics cases, the probability of delaying gynaecological cases increases. Conclusion: In our study, we investigated the effects of pandemic in obstetrics and gynaecology clinics during the normalization process. We think that the study will help in determining our approach to obstetrical and gynaecological cases in the future.

Keywords

• pandemic
• obstetrics
• gynaecology
• clinic approach
• clinic effect
• clinic urgency

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