COVID-19 Experience of Italian GPs

As of 8 April, Italy was the most COVID-19-affected country in Europe. Of 135 000 confirmed cases over 6,000 were health care professionals, and 94 of those have died, the authors of the study (Fiorino et al. 2020) note. In the region of Lombardy hospital overcrowding has been the most severe in the country, and GPs there are frequently exposed to the virus, which has already led to 20 deaths.

Exposure. 108 respondents (40%) had COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, or diarrhoea or vomiting, but only 18 (7%) underwent SARS-CoV-2 testing (two tests rendered positive results). 125 GPs (46%) had at least one contact with a COVID-19 patient, and more than three quarters of the symptomatic patients they referred to the hospital were positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Change in practice. The majority of surveyed GPs (238, or 88%) modified their practice of delivering care, mostly through telephone calls (73%) or telemedicine (24%). Almost all of the respondents (264, or 97%) adopted strategies to avoid overcrowding of patients at their office.