Economic and emotional impact of COVID-19 pandemic on phoniatricians’ practice in Egypt

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 is not only a health crisis; it has the potential to create devastating social, as well as economic crises. Health care practitioners are the category with the highest diffusion of the contagion. The aim was to determine the economic and emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on phoniatricians in Egypt in an attempt to analyze this data to determine the magnitude of this effect and if it is age and/or location specific. Subjects and methods: An online structured Google-free form survey composed of 49 questions was created and sent online to phoniatricians all over Egypt. The survey was divided into three sections about demographic, economical then emotional-related questions. The studied group was further subdivided into 2 groups according to age and location for comparison purposes. Results: 82.5% of phoniatricians confirmed that the pandemic had a lot of negative impact on their practice. About 37.5% reduced their practices to urgent procedures and the same percentage closed their practice. The expenses of 56.3% exceeded their income. 91.2% had negative feelings when thinking about the pandemic. The economic problems have affected 71.3% of the participants emotionally. The pandemic had comparable negative impact on the economic and emotional aspects of both age groups. However, the younger age group suffered more from getting infected, and they thought more about career shift and was the group that needed psychological support during the pandemic. Outside Cairo organizations succeeded in providing the personal protective equipment to the phoniatricians in comparison to Cairo. Conclusion: COVID-19 had a negative effect on the economical and emotional aspects of Egyptian phoniatricians’ lives. The pandemic economic burden was related to quarantine period, heath problems and getting infected, family requirements, and purchasing the protective equipment. The emotional burden was related most to the pandemic hazards and financial effect on the clients and chance of losing job. Few effects were age- and location-specific.