Impact of COVID-19 on Dialysis Patients: Reported Experience in Qatar

Background: Patient-centered care is a concept focussing on meeting the specific health needs of patients as expressed by them. Patients Reported Experience Measures (PREM) is another concept associated with patient-centered care. PREM surveys capture information about the healthcare experience as perceived by patients.1 Its importance lies in the incorporation of patient feedback into the clinical decisions and service evolution.2 Dialysis patients play an important role in their treatment and their voice matters to provide proper care. PREM was first conducted in 2019 in our dialysis unit. In 2020, the COVID-19 impacted dialysis services and resulted in many challenges including staff shortage and deployment. Yet, the patients’ feedback was evaluated continuously and compared with previous years before the pandemic. Methods: A validated questionnaire from the National Health Service in London was used.3 It consisted of 7 questions covering demographics, dialysis options, patient portal, patient's relationship with the staff, teamwork, and traveling abroad. The survey involved 317 randomly selected patients who have been at least one year on dialysis. A comparison between 2019 and 2020 results was conducted using the chi-square test. Results: A drop in patients’ experience was observed in many survey components like education on dialysis, medication side effects, access to the patient portal, access to physicians and nurses from home (Figure 2). However, in other areas, some positive experiences remained unchanged like communication and knowledge among the staff.:Conclusion: Patients’ reported experience helps in the evaluation of health services. After exploring dialysis patients’ experiences, it was possible to identify what is going well and how COVID-19 impacted the patients’ perspectives. The PREM survey conducted in this work showed a significant decline in many parameters likely attributed to COVID-19 consequences including the staff shortages.