FACING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19 BY THE MANAGERS OF CARE HOMES FOR OLDER PEOPLE IN LATIN AMERICA

• Autor(a) principal: Wachholz, Patrick Alexander
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Jacinto, Alessandro Ferrari, Melo, Ruth Caldeira de, Dinamarca-Montecinos, José Luis, Villas Boas, Paulo José Fortes
• Tipo de documento: preprint
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: SciELO Preprints
• Texto Completo: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/986
• topic: COVID-19; aged; Long stay Institution for the Elderly

Introduction: Few information is available on coping and mitigating COVID-19 in long-term care services for older people (ILPIs) in Latin America (LA). Objectives: To describe how ILPI managers in LA planned and adapted their coping routines to the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether they were able to comply with the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). Methodology: Cross-sectional study, based on the application of an online survey aimed at LTCF managers in LA. A 46-question questionnaire (adopting WHO principles) was sent to participants. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data. Results: 23 managers answered the survey (excluding Brazilian respondents), totaling 874 older person (5 -270); a questionnaire was excluded due to lack of answers. Fourteen ILPIs (63.60%) were private for profit. The rate of adherence to WHO recommendations was over 70% for most issues. A little more than half of the institutions developed a strategic coping plan, or identified strategies to deal with deaths from suspected cases. Difficulty in acquiring personal protective equipment was reported by 59.10% of the investigated LTCIs. The testing capacity for SARS-Cov-2 has been reduced (36.36% had no test). Conclusions: The rate of adherence to the recommendations proposed by WHO for coping with COVID-19 was over 70% for most investigated LTCIs. Strategic coping plans were developed in just over half of the institutions. The availability of PPE and the testing capacity for SARS-Cov-2 proved to be quite unsatisfactory.