French General Practitioners’ Adaptations for Patients with Suspected COVID-19 in May 2020

Abstract

In France, towards the end of the first lockdown, COVID-19 management was largely transferred from hospitals to primary care. Primary care actors adapted their practices to ensure patients’ access to care, while limiting contamination. In this study, we aimed to identify patterns of adaptations implemented by French general practitioners (GPs) in May 2020 for outpatients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, and factors associated with these adaptions. A French survey concerning care organization adaptations, and individual, organizational, and territorial characteristics, was sent to GPs. Data were analyzed by multiple correspondence analysis followed by agglomerative hierarchical clustering to identify GPs’ adaptation clusters. A multinomial logistic regression model estimated the associations between clusters and individual, organizational, and territorial factors. Finally, 3068 surveys were analyzed (5.8% of French GPs). Four GPs’ adaptation clusters were identified: autonomous medical reorganization (64.2% of responders), interprofessional reorganization (15.9%), use of hospital (5.1%), and collaboration with COVID-19 outpatient centers (14.8%). Age, practice type and size, and territorial features were significantly associated with adaptation clusters. Our results suggest that healthcare systems should consider organizational features of primary care to effectively deal with future challenges, including healthcare crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but also those linked to epidemiologic and societal changes.