California doctors still stressed even as worries about hospital capacity subside, poll shows
Critical care doctors expressed significantly greater confidence in the availability of testing and personal protective equipment in a recent poll about the challenges of treating patients with COVID-19, yet their personal stress levels remain elevated.
The California Health Care Foundation has been working since mid-March with the physician market-research firm Truth on Call to survey 150 front-line physicians every two weeks to assess the demands on the state’s health care system, said Kristof Stremikis, director of market analysis and insight at the California Health Care Foundation.
CHCF and Truth on Call has polled hospital-based doctors in the fields of critical care, emergency medicine and infectious diseases, and in the most recent survey, more physicians indicated their stress levels were about the same or higher. That’s not good, Stremikis said, because the April 14 survey showed 51 percent of doctors felt their stress levels had risen.
“If worries around PPE, if worries around space, if worries around workforce over the next month have fallen, why would your stress level increase or stay the same?” Stremikis said. “We don’t know the answer to that. I think it’s fair to say this pandemic is unprecedented, and it’s got to be stressful for everybody, even front-line doctors, regardless of whether you think you’re going to have the equipment and space you need to treat patients over the next month.”
Still, Stremikis said, these physicians work in an emergency setting, and they’re accustomed to dealing with a lot of stress all the time. COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus, appears to be introducing new levels of anxiety that few other diseases have exacted from medical personnel and even their families.
Education policy researcher Irina Okhremtchouk founded a resource group for herself and other spouses of front-line medical personnel. It now has about 200 members.
Some spouses and their children started living in separate quarters as soon as their partners began treating COVID-19 patients, she said, and others have isolated the health care workers to a bedroom and bath to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19, should the worker bring the virus home. They’ve instituted decontamination processes, she said, and avoid physical contact.
The virus can live for up to three days on some surfaces. It is spread when people talk, cough or sneeze, and pathogen-laden droplets get expelled onto others or onto commonly used surfaces.
Because so many hospital have restricted visitors for COVID-19 patients, doctors and other medical personnel also find themselves in a new role, having to minister to many patients in their last days or set up video teleconferences to allow loved ones to say goodbye.
On top of that, many physician practices are under the greatest financial strain that doctors have seen in their careers. The California Medical Association reported Monday that revenue for practices statewide has declined by 64 percent since Mar. 1, 2020, with 75 percent of practices experiencing a revenue decline of 50 percent or greater.
Even as many physicians work to save lives, CMA officials noted, they are being notified that their pay will be cut in some way or that their staff will have to be furloughed.
While the medical association’s survey results showed that the availability of personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators and face shields remained high among doctors for their private practices, the CHCF poll showed that critical care doctors were markedly more confident that they had what they needed.
April 1 survey results showed that 66 percent of physicians expected future shortages of PPE, the foundation reported, but Friday’s survey results showed that only 21 percent rated that as a worry.
Similarly, only 12 percent of doctors expressed worry about the availability of ICU space and ventilators in results released Friday, compared with 62 percent a month earlier. And, four weeks ago, half the doctors polled worried there wouldn’t be enough staff to meet the surge in COVID-19 cases, but that concern now only plagues 9 percent of the doctors in the CHCF poll.
“We’re trending in the right direction, as you can see in the data on a number of fronts when it comes to equipment, supplies, staffing,” Stremikis said “Now, nine out of ten physicians are saying they can get testing.”
And, when asked to rate whether tests results were returned in a timely fashion, about six out of 10 doctors gave scores of 4 to 5, with five defined as very timely.
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 4:05 PM.
