ArticleCMAJ open
Physician questions and concerns related to COVID-19: a content analysis of advice calls to a medico-legal helpline.
Article in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multicultural ethics in crisis: prioritizing ECMO allocation and the role of critical consciousness.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Beyond medical errors: exploring the interpersonal dynamics in physician-patient relationships linked to medico-legal complaints.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Family physicians' questions about the COVID-19 pandemic: a content analysis of 2,272 helpline calls.BMC primary care · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWith the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians have had concerns related to the impact of the pandemic on their practice of medicine. Our objective was to evaluate physician questions and concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic by studying physician calls made to a medico-legal telephone helpline, and explore associations between the pattern of these calls and the temporal progression of the pandemic.
methodsWe conducted a descriptive study of calls related to the COVID-19 pandemic to the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) from Jan. 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021. Using content analysis, we classified calls into themes. Using a Poisson regression model, we tested for associations between the weekly numbers of physician calls related to COVID-19 and national rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
resultsWe analyzed 3810 COVID-19-related calls. The highest call volume was observed during the pandemic's early months and was widely distributed across the country. Call volume correlated with rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection during the pandemic's first wave (
interpretationWe observed high volumes of physician calls to a medico-legal helpline during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Our data provide insight into the questions and concerns of Canadian physicians, and serve as a contemporaneous account of the adaptability and resilience of physicians during this challenging time.
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