engleski

Management, care and support of chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic

Beginning December 2019, world has faced an unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by a novel strain of coronavirus family, also referred to as 2019 Novel Coronavirus or more simplified 2019-nCoV. Today, there is more than 130 million recorded cases of COVID-19 among population worldwide. Despite plethora of new research and academic discussion focused primarily on symptoms of the acute illness, there is still necessity for further studies regarding its wider impact on chronic and immunodeficient patients, as well as patients on continuous therapy. It is now confirmed that chronicity and comorbidity increase the risk of obtaining COVID-19 infection, as well as the course and severity of the disease itself. Some of the high-risk conditions that are important to manage to help prevent severe symptoms of COVID-19 include asthma and lung disease, diabetes, heart disease, immunodeficiency, oncology treatment and chronic kidney disease. It is of utmost importance that chronically ill patients adhere to recommended public health guidelines regarding proper hand hygiene, social distancing measures and wearing a properly fitted face masks.As a result of these new global circumstances, health systems are facing numerous challenges – public health prevention programs for chronic non-infectious diseases have been brought to abrupt stop, newly diagnosed chronic patients could face lacking education and support, mental health burden caused by a pandemic as well as recent significant earthquakes in Central and Southeast Europe, is showing to rise. Despite the majority of other elective medical treatments being postponed, it is still important to stress the necessity for chronic and immunodeficient patients to be in continuous contact with their primary care physicians as well as to continue their course of treatment. Nurses and other public health officials have an important role to act in the community as much as possible, given the epidemiological provisions. It is important to improve communication between primary care (family) physicians with other levels of health care. It is necessary to increase the number and availability of educational – printed and video materials, so that the newly diagnosed chronic patients would have a reliable source of information.

pandemic ; chronic diseases ; nurses ; patients ; education

nije evidentirano