Purpose:

To know the opinion and perception of healthcare professionals about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their practice and the priority health policies for post-pandemic reform.

Study design:

Observational, cross-sectional, and descriptive.

Population:

Adults, active healthcare professionals from any area during the year 2020.

Methods:

Data collection through a questionnaire released online on diverse platforms during the first half of July 2021. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was performed in Microsoft Excel® and GraphPad Prism®.

Results:

Of the 546 healthcare professionals who participated in this study, 93% considered that the COVID-19 pandemic had an important impact on their clinical practice; 65% of these rated this impact as high. There was a statistically significant difference for all work difficulties experienced before vs during the pandemic. It was in Primary Health Care (PHC) that the highest rate of job dissatisfaction was found in the first year of the pandemic. The most priority health policy for the post-pandemic period was the resumption of screenings (94.9%), followed by the hiring of healthcare professionals (94.1%) and the improvement of remunerations (93.2%). Other considered priorities were the planning of the Portuguese National Health Service for situations like this pandemic, the reinforcement of teams and conditions of PHC, and the reduction of bureaucratic work. In contrast, investment in telemedicine was considered the lowest priority policy of all those listed, with only about 67% of participants considering it relevant.

Conclusions:

For healthcare professionals, the resumption of screenings is the highest priority health policy to adopt in the post-pandemic period. Investing in PHC is a pressing need and hiring professionals is essential.

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