Excessive patient relatives in the examination room on the daily orthopaedic outpatient clinic and decreasing methods

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic, which affected the whole world at the end of 2019, is considered highly contagious. Already infected people are fundamentally supposed to be the source of infection; nevertheless, asymptomatic infected patients can alike be a source of infection. Assuming that healthcare workers are also at high risk during this pandemic period, the importance of compliance with the restrictions set by health authorities increases. Patients who applied to three separate orthopedic and traumatology outpatient clinics were prospectively examined between September 1 and October 1, 2021. 740 patients were included in the study. It was assessed how many individuals joined the outpatient clinic room with the patients included in the study and whether the people accompanying them had any additional diseases. In addition, the size of the outpatient clinic room, the existence of assistant health personnel attending the physician, and the ventilation conditions of the outpatient clinic room were also investigated. The mean age was 42.1. The number of patients who applied to the outpatient clinic room alone was 141 (%19). 250 patients with one relative entered the outpatient clinic room (%33), 225 patients with two relatives (%30), 80 patients with three relatives (%11), and 44 patients with four relatives (%6). No patient entered the outpatient clinic room with more than four relatives The mean size of the outpatient clinic rooms of the three orthopedic and traumatology specialists who conducted the study was found to be 12.4 m2. This multicenter study aims to determine the proportional values of the number of unnecessary people entering the room in the routine orthopedic outpatient clinic and to present literature recommendations for the solution to this problem.