Population attitude and access to the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic elicited important changes in community habits and behaviors, including a distancing of people from the healthcare system. The objective of this work was to understand the causes that gave rise to changes in behavior from an individual perspective in the Argentine Republic. We performed a cross-sectional, web-based survey using an online questionnaire. The survey was distributed via the WhatsApp application for smartphones among subjects across the Argentine territory using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. We received 6176 responses. Almost 70% of respondents manifested fear of visiting a physician. One third of respondents manifested having a desire or need in at least one occasion of visiting a physician but, of these, 48% avoided it. The main reasons for avoiding visits were: 1) a recommendation of staying home (40%); 2) lack of access to the physician (35%); and 3) fear of contagion (26%). The most common form of consultation was through unconventional means (e-mail, telephone, or WhatsApp). One of 5 respondents had difficulties to obtain a medication prescription and 5% stopped the use of at least one medication. Regarding healthy habits, almost 2/3 of those surveyed stated that they became more sedentary; 11% of hypertensive patients increased their consumption of salt and 15% saw their blood pressure values increase, while 16% of dyslipidemic patients showed increased consumption of fats.