Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Background: General practitioners GPs played a decisive role during the COVID epidemic, particularly in the identification and care of patients at home. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study based on a item questionnaire aiming to investigate how primary care physicians GPs working in the rural Aube Department experienced the COVID crisis. Results: Among the respondents, By multivariate analysis, a feeling of having been adequately informed OR Conclusion: This study about rural primary care physicians in Eastern France highlights some of the weaknesses of the French healthcare system in terms of the provision of primary care during the epidemic.
A leading cause of dissatisfaction was that the information relayed by the health authorities about the disease and its management largely overlooked the primary care providers, many of whom had to rely on traditional media to obtain information.
Keywords: general practice, COVID, health policy, information literacy, information dissemination. The disease presents a wide range of symptoms fever, asthenia, cough, and dyspnea , and its severity depends on various individual risk factors, including age, obesity, chronic disease, and immunosuppression [ 1 ]. In France, the first cases appeared in early , increasing exponentially, with the greater Eastern region of France being among the hardest hit areas [ 3 ].
France, alongside many other countries, was obliged to impose a nationwide lockdown [ 4 ]. These numbers have continued to rise with the current resurgence of the disease in the winter months of the northern hemisphere. To cope with this major crisis for the healthcare system, nationwide measures that had profound effects on our manner of living and working were implemented, including border closures, lockdown, restrictions on population movement, school closures, mandatory mask-wearing etc.
The crisis also led to a profound upheaval in healthcare delivery, notably with major changes to primary and ambulatory care [ 6 ], by adapting the rhythm of consultations and appointments, reorganizing patient flows through surgeries and offices, implementing strict hygiene measures, and increasingly using telemedicine solutions [ 7 , 8 , 9 ].
