RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sociodemographic differences in patient experience with primary care during COVID-19: results from a cross-sectional survey in Ontario, Canada
JF BMJ Open
JO BMJ Open
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP e056868
DO 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056868
VO 12
IS 5
A1 Payal Agarwal
A1 Ri Wang
A1 Christopher Meaney
A1 Sakina Walji
A1 Ali Damji
A1 Navsheer Gill
A1 Gina Yip
A1 Debbie Elman
A1 Tiffany Florindo
A1 Susanna Fung
A1 Melissa Witty
A1 Thuy-Nga Pham
A1 Noor Ramji
A1 Tara Kiran
YR 2022
UL http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/5/e056868.abstract
AB Purpose We sought to understand patients’ care-seeking behaviours early in the pandemic, their use and views of different virtual care modalities, and whether these differed by sociodemographic factors.Methods We conducted a multisite cross-sectional patient experience survey at 13 academic primary care teaching practices between May and June 2020. An anonymised link to an electronic survey was sent to a subset of patients with a valid email address on file; sampling was based on birth month. For each question, the proportion of respondents who selected each response was calculated, followed by a comparison by sociodemographic characteristics using χ2 tests.Results In total, 7532 participants responded to the survey. Most received care from their primary care clinic during the pandemic (67.7%, 5068/7482), the majority via phone (82.5%, 4195/5086). Among those who received care, 30.53% (1509/4943) stated that they delayed seeking care because of the pandemic. Most participants reported a high degree of comfort with phone (92.4%, 3824/4139), video (95.2%, 238/250) and email or messaging (91.3%, 794/870). However, those reporting difficulty making ends meet, poor or fair health and arriving in Canada in the last 10 years reported lower levels of comfort with virtual care and fewer wanted their practice to continue offering virtual options after the pandemic.Conclusions Our study suggests that newcomers, people living with a lower income and those reporting poor or fair health have a stronger preference and comfort for in-person primary care. Further research should explore potential barriers to virtual care and how these could be addressed.Data are available on reasonable request. Extra data are available on reasonable request by emailing TK at dfcm.quality@utoronto.ca