THE SATISFACTION OF PATIENTS ON SURGICAL CLINICS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally to more than 62 million persons with overwhelming impact to the healthcare systems and chronic ill patients worldwide. In this study, our aim was to assess the satisfaction of surgical patients regarding their routine clinic visits during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study using a structured interview with questionnaire in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a sample size of 518. Descriptive analysis was performed by using IBM SPSS version 17 (Chicago: SPSS Inc.). The results showed thatmost of the participants did not visit their scheduled surgical clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic and most of the ones who visited were very dissatisfied with the services they received. Accordingly, approaches to implement precautionary measures against COVID-19 and long-distance communication such as telemedicine, when properly instituted, can have a wider impact during this pandemic and in the future ones.