Quality of Life Assessment in primary care during COVID-19 pandemic using EuroQol

Alba Pons Revuelta, Helena Abadín Carcedo, Sara Freire López, Marta Pereira Da Costa Carvalho, Antonio Ángel Regueiro Martínez, Ana María Romero García, Carmen Rico Padín, Víctor Manuel Lois López, Concepción Camiño Redondo, Diego Canedo Cotelo, María Adela Otero Gondar, Manuel Castro Segad, Fabiola González De Oliveira, Carmen Santos Novas, María Del Rosario Lago Fernández, Mar Serrano González, Irene Pardo Planas, Sonia María Gomara Villabona, Minia Enjo Rey, Ana Clavería Fontán

Keywords: Quality of Life, Primary Health Care, COVID-19

Background:

COVID-19 global pandemic has caused an impact over physical and mental health population. Thus, multiple restrictive measures were initiated, such as social distancing and home confinement, and a huge reorganization of health care, both in primary care and hospital settings.

There are different studies on COVID-19 focused on its clinical presentation, management in intensive care units, treatments, etc. It was found that there wasn't many publications about the quality of life assessment in general population. To analyze how it has changed due to COVID-19 pandemic can give us the necessary tools to anticipate the needs of our population and prevent the worsening of their health status.

Research questions:

Our main aim is to quantify quality of life changes in our health center population in the context of COVID-19 pandemic along one year after the Spanish alarm state.

Method:

Prospective cohort study, randomly selected patients out of those assigned to the Vilanova de Arousa Health Center (10.000), that meet the criteria. A semi-structured telephone survey will be performed, including EQ-5D-5L and sociodemographic data, three times between June 2020 to August 2021.

Descriptive analyzes of the main study variables will be carried out, both demographic and related to EQ-5D-5L and to the semi-structured survey. Qualitative variables will be presented as frequency and percentage and quantitative variables as mean and standard deviation. Differences by sex and age groups will be analyzed. P is considered significant if <0.05.

For the statistical analysis of the variables related to quality of life at the beginning, during and at the end, the McNemar and Wilcoxon statistical tests will be used for the categorical and quantitative variables respectively, as they are repeated measures.

Results:

Ongoing study, there are no preliminary results yet. The data from the first two interviews will be presented.

Conclusions:

Points for discussion:

What’s your perception about the impact that this pandemic had over Primary Care and the Health Systems?

Is this study applicable to your Health Care Center?

What results do you think we are going to obtain?

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