Background: COVID-19 is a newly emerging-disease. Anesthesiology personnel are at substantial risk of infection due to the nature of aerosol generating procedure. The Royal College of Anesthesiologists of Thailand (RCAT) has published a clinical practice guideline (CPG) named “current practice guidelines for anesthesia management in COVID-19 case (April 24, 2020)” to prevent disease transmission, which might not be practical in some settings due to resource limitation.

Objective: To explore knowledge and opinions of anesthesiology personnel toward current practice guidelines. Real world practice and factors that may affect it were also surveyed.

Material and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional descriptive study. Anesthesiology personnel from institutions in Thailand were asked to fill an online self-administered questionnaire via Google Form between July 11 and August 15, 2021. The questionnaire consisted of four main parts, demographic data, hospital settings, knowledge about RCAT COVID-19 CPG, and other opinions regarding real-world practice. SPSS version 22.0 was used for statistical analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze participants’ comments.

Results: Two hundred fifty-one anesthesiology specialists, residents, and anesthetist nurses from 44 provinces participated in the present study. Although 55.4% of participants were trained to perform general anesthesia in COVID-19 patients, 80.5% knew about RCAT CPG and had sufficient basic knowledge. The lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) was the main reason participants could not follow RCAT CPG.

Conclusion: The participants had sufficient knowledge of RCAT CPG and were able to use PPE correctly according to WHO standard. However, based on participants’ opinion, inadequate resources, human errors, conflicts in the workplace, and staffing shortage may be the reasons that prevent practice according to RCAT CPG. As a part of effective infection control, three factors that play large roles were previous training, knowledge of COVID-19 transmission, and adequate supply of PPE.

Keywords: Anesthesiology; COVID-19; Opinion; Practice; Guidelines; Personal protective equipment

DOI: 10.35755/jmedassocthai.2022.09.13591

Received 4 April 2022 | Revised 16 May 2022 | Accepted 19 May 2022