Background:
World is facing COVID-19 pandemic since December 2019. COVID-19 has significantly decreased the influx of patients presenting with cardiovascular diseases at hospitals. The aim of this study was to determine the difficulties faced by patients in visiting the cardiac clinics during COVID-19 era and to assess the awareness regarding telemedicine and willingness to adopt if offered in future.
Methods:
This cross sectional study was carried out on patients presenting to the outpatient department in National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases. Data was collected after verbal consent. The collected data was entered using IBM SPSS version 21, mean ± SD was calculated for continuous variables and frequency and percentages were calculated for the categorical variables.
Results:
A total of 404 patients were interviewed, 41.8% female and 58.2% male with 77.5% from urban areas. A total of 32.1% patients presented with shortness of breath, 28.8% with chest pain and 19% with palpitations. Regarding Cardiovascular diagnosis 69.5% had ischemic heart disease, 38.3% had hypertension and 29.3% suffered from heart failure. A total of 26.7% visited the emergency room during the pandemic. 81.9% were compliant with medications and only 66% were compliant with a healthy lifestyle. A total of 52.8% patients found it difficult to attend the out patients department due to limited appointments, 24% due to limited mobility due to lockdown,18.2% due to financial issues and 14.2% due to fear of acquiring infection from the hospital. Regarding telemedicine, 11.2% of the patients were aware of it and only 4.5% had previously used it, with 41.3% patients willing to opt for telemedicine in future. Regarding barriers to usage of telemedicine, 40.7% of patients had no access to internet, 32.7% did not have a smart device and 11.6% were afraid of being diagnosed incorrectly.
Conclusion:
It was found that social distancing measures, lockdowns and restricted mobility of the masses has made it difficult for patients to visit the clinics which has led to a large number of patients visiting the emergency room. Telemedicine awareness was found to be limited, however many patients were willing to opt for it.
Footnotes
Poster Contributions
For exact presentation time, refer to the online ACC.22 Program Planner at https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10461
Session Title: Spotlight on Special Topics Flatboard Poster Selections: COVID
Abstract Category: 61. Spotlight on Special Topics: Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)