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Research

Enhancing the management of long COVID in general practice: a scoping review

Aimee Brennan, John Michael Broughan, Geoff McCombe, John Brennan, Claire Collins, Ronan Fawsitt, Joe Gallagher, Allys Guérandel, Brendan O'Kelly, Diarmuid Quinlan, John S Lambert and Walter Cullen
BJGP Open 7 March 2022; BJGPO.2021.0178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0178
Aimee Brennan
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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John Michael Broughan
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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Geoff McCombe
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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John Brennan
2 Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
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Claire Collins
3 Irish College of General Practitioners, Dublin, Ireland
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Ronan Fawsitt
4 Castle Gardens Surgery, Kilkenny, Ireland
5 Ireland East Hospital Group, Dublin, Ireland
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Joe Gallagher
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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Allys Guérandel
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
6 Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health Research, St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
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Brendan O'Kelly
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
7 Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
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Diarmuid Quinlan
3 Irish College of General Practitioners, Dublin, Ireland
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John S Lambert
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
7 Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
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Walter Cullen
1 School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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Abstract

Background Long COVID is a multifaceted condition, and it has impacted a considerable proportion of those with acute-COVID-19. Affected patients often have complex care needs requiring holistic and multidisciplinary care, the kind routinely provided in general practice. However, there is limited evidence regarding GP interventions.

Aim This study aimed to address this issue by conducting a scoping review of literature on GP management of Long COVID.

Design & setting Arksey and O’Malley’s six-stage scoping review framework with recommendations by Levac et al. was used.

Method PubMed, Google Scholar, the Cochrane Library, SCOPUS, and Google searches were conducted to identify relevant peer-reviewed/grey literature, and study selection process was conducted according to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Braun and Clarke’s ‘Thematic Analysis’ approach was used to interpret data.

Results Nineteen of 972 identified papers were selected for review. These included peer-reviewed articles and grey literature spanning a wide range of countries. Six themes were identified regarding GP management of Long COVID, these being: (i) GP uncertainty, (ii) Listening and empathy, (iii) Assessment and monitoring of symptoms, (iv) Coordinating access to appropriate services, (v) Facilitating provision of continual and integrated multi-disciplinary care and (vi) Need to facilitate psychological support.

Conclusion The findings show that GPs can and have played a key role in the management of Long COVID, and that patient care can be improved through better understanding of patient experiences, standardised approaches for symptom identification/treatment, and facilitation of access to multidisciplinary specialist services when needed. Future research evaluating focused GP interventions is needed.

  • COVID-19
  • Delivery of Healthcare
  • General Practice
  • Long COVID
  • Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome
  • Primary Health Care
  • Received September 29, 2021.
  • Revision received December 8, 2021.
  • Accepted December 13, 2021.
  • Copyright © 2022, The Authors

This article is Open Access: CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Accepted Manuscript
Enhancing the management of long COVID in general practice: a scoping review
Aimee Brennan, John Michael Broughan, Geoff McCombe, John Brennan, Claire Collins, Ronan Fawsitt, Joe Gallagher, Allys Guérandel, Brendan O'Kelly, Diarmuid Quinlan, John S Lambert, Walter Cullen
BJGP Open 7 March 2022; BJGPO.2021.0178. DOI: 10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0178

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Accepted Manuscript
Enhancing the management of long COVID in general practice: a scoping review
Aimee Brennan, John Michael Broughan, Geoff McCombe, John Brennan, Claire Collins, Ronan Fawsitt, Joe Gallagher, Allys Guérandel, Brendan O'Kelly, Diarmuid Quinlan, John S Lambert, Walter Cullen
BJGP Open 7 March 2022; BJGPO.2021.0178. DOI: 10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0178
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Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Delivery of Healthcare
  • general practice
  • long COVID
  • post-acute COVID-19 syndrome
  • primary health care

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