key: cord-0941170-9s0f9six
authors: Finset, Arnstein
title: How does the Covid-19 pandemic affect provider-patient relations?
date: 2021-03-10
journal: Patient Educ Couns
DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.02.011
sha: 014bf340ea57b2a10d2577a626cd1ef69d6ffb68
doc_id: 941170
cord_uid: 9s0f9six

nan

How does the Covid-19 pandemic affect provider-patient relations?

As this issue of PEC is being published, we have lived with the Covid-19 pandemic for a full year, or even longer in some countries. For the readers of PEC as well as for other researchers, teachers and health care providers, new routines were established during the spring of 2020 in activities such as clinical work and in teaching. On one hand, increased use of video solutions and other examples of ehealth and e-learning proved to be a positive experience, while the limitations on face-to-face encounters often represented an obvious disadvantage. The optimists among us prematurely thought that danger would be gone when infections decreased during the summer. However, in March 2021, the workday of health care providers is still being influenced by the impediments caused by the pandemic. A number of papers are now being written on how the consequences of the pandemic on communication practices and patient-provider relations. In the present issue of PEC, we publish four papers covering different aspects on the impact of Covid-19 on clinical encounters.

Wittenberg et al. have written a systematic review aiming to analyze writings on provider communication resources related to the Covid-19 pandemic, both in terms of grey literature resources and peer-reviewed articles [1] . The authors identified a series of barriers for communication caused by the pandemic, as well as ways to facilitate communication in spite of the obvious obstacles. The authors conclude with a plea to develop more evidence based resources to aid providers in handling their communication with patients during pandemics such as Covid-19.

One of the challenges of the pandemic has been the shift from face-to-face clinical encounters to different ways of video-based communication. Courtney, Blackburn and Reuber explore the perceptions of neurologists of telephone and videophone remote consultations [2] . The authors suggest that tele-neurology still will be used even after the pandemic. Based on their findings, the authors discuss why video-based approaches cannot fully replace face-to-face consultations in the practice of neurology. E-health does not only involve communication between patient and provider via video or other devices, but in some cases the use of artificial intelligence. For instance, "Alexa" has been launched as a voice-controlled virtual assistant, designed to respond to healthrelated questions. Schindler-Ruwisch and Esposito explored whether Alexa, could work as a supplement to provider-facilitated prenatal care during the COVID19 pandemic [3] . They found that Alexa was largely unable to produce adequate responses to commonly asked pregnancy questions. In many cases, Alexa's responses would confuse rather than enlighten patients.

Finally, in a short commentary, Pype et al. discuss the importance of touch and other non-verbal aspects of communication and how the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a practice of physical distancing in order in the service of infection control and a marked reluctance among providers to touch their patients physically [4] . The authors conclude that we need to reflect on how the decrease of touch in the consultations may negatively impact the quality of care, and they suggest more emphasis on how to compensate for the lack of touch with other ways of interacting in for the benefit of patients.

Opportunities to improve COVID-19 provider communication resources: A systematic review

Neurologists' perceptions of utilising teleneurology to practice remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic

Alexa, am I Pregnant?": a content analysis of a virtual assistant's responses to prenatal health questions during the Covid-19 pandemic

Covid-19 and touch in medical encounters