Pediatric residents' perceptions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their training

Introduction. Medical residency programs suffered changes that may have affected academic training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objectives. To describe the perceptions of pediatric residents about the pandemic's impact on their education. To transculturally adapt and validate the COVID-19 Resident Education and Experience Survey into Spanish. Materials and methods. Observational, cross-sectional study. Participants were pediatric residents from hospitals across the country. The survey by Ostapenko et al. was used. A descriptive analysis was done using the SPSS software, version 21. The project was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. Results. The survey was completed by 127 residents. Most did more than 50 hours of health care activities before and during the pandemic. Also, 43.3% (95% CI: 35-52) spent at least 1 hour a day studying individually before the pandemic, while 63% (95% CI: 54.3-70.9) did so during the pandemic. In relation to the time spent doing academic work, 75.6% (95% CI: 67.4-82.2) reported that, before the pandemic, they spent at least 4 hours a week doing academic activities, dropping to 41.7% (95% CI: 33.5-50.4) during the pandemic. More than 60% (95% CI: 54.3-70.1) perceived that the pandemic impaired their training to become a specialist and 93.7% (95% CI: 88.1-96.8), that their stress levels increased. Conclusions. The perception was that participants spent less hours doing academic activities during the pandemic. Most surveyed participants mentioned that their stress levels increased and that the pandemic impaired their training to become a specialist.