Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Urology Practice in Indonesia: A Nationwide Survey

Firstly discovered on December 2019 in Wuhan, China, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly and widely throughout the world.1 The first positive case in Indonesia was confirmed in early March 2020 and this number has increased exponentially until today. This pandemic has forced changes in many aspects of life including healthcare practices. Even though management of COVID-19 is a “different field” to urology practice, COVID-19 is having a great impact on daily urology practice. Therefore, we conducted a nationwide survey to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urology practice in Indonesia through a survey. A survey was distributed using Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com), a cloud-based online survey, in April 2020 to urologists registered in the Indonesian Urology Association (IUA) database and urology residents in all centres across Indonesia. Some of the questions within the survey were adapted from questionnaire developed by Societe Internationale d’ Urologie (SIU).2,3 Demographic, practice pattern of urologist, and prioritization of surgery during COVID-19 pandemic was investigated by this survey. For urologist practice pattern, this survey also differentiated and compared between public and private practice. Of the total 485 eligible urologists and 220 eligible urology residents as a respondent, 369 urologists (76% response rate) who came from 30 out of 34 provinces and 220 urology residents (100% response rate) participated in this study with 89.7% and 97.7% overall completeness, respectively. The urologist’s median (range) of age is 40 (30-77) years old and urology resident’s median (range) of age is 30 (24-38) years old. Thirty-five out of 369 urologists (9.5%) and 59 out of 220 (24.8%) had been appointed as suspected case with two urologists and five urology residents had tested positive for COVID-19. Several strategies had been developed by urologists and their hospitals to adjust towards the COVID-19 epidemic situation, such as physician rotation and reduction of working hours. In terms of urology resident training, Indonesia has five urology centres, each of which has affiliated hospitals where residents undergo rotation. However, during COVID-19 period, all centres called resident back from the affiliated hospitals, except Bandung urology center in West Java Province.