THE EFFECT OF DELAYED MEDICAL CARE PROCESS ON PATIENTS IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The SARS-COV 2 outbreak started in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and spread rapidly all over the world. During the pandemic that started with this epidemic, difficulties have been experienced in accessing health facilities due to the concern that people with diseases other than Covid-19 would conserve health system resources, reduce patient contact with health facilities, and simultaneously be infected by the disease for their own health. Due to concerns such as contamination or transmission, it is considered that individuals with non-Covid-19 diseases will progress more, their symptoms will increase and their treatment will prolong, and morbidity and mortality will increase. At the same time, symptoms of undiagnosed diseases will cause prolonged complaints in individuals due to delayed diagnosis and treatment. This will lead to the deterioration of the quality of life of individuals as a result of the situation described as "secondary damage", which is supposed to occur due to Covid-19, and the emergence of irreparable results as a result of delayed treatment. We conducted this study by aiming to investigate this situation in depth. In this study, in addition to 11 demographic questions, 10 questions were asked to the participants regarding the determination of non-Covid-19 diseases or symptoms. Also, individuals' personal control, treatment control, disease consistency and emotional control have been evaluated during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Covid-19 Fear Scale and the Disease Perception Scale. According to the mean score obtained from the scale (17.30±5.68), it was observed that the participants experienced a moderate level of fear against Covid-19. Besides, 72.9% (n=94) of the patient participants stated that they were not afraid of going to health institutions for the diagnosis and / or treatment of the disease during the Covid-19 period. 55.0% of them (n=71) stated that they thought that the diagnosis / treatment delayed due to Covid-19 would not affect their health status negatively. It is the good that patients in our country do not have trouble in accessing health services. However, we can say that with the end of the prolonged pandemic, cases that have not yet been diagnosed may increase, and in this case, the intensity of health services will continue for a long time.