Illustrative image of a woman wearing a mask.

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Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS / Sipa US / SIPA

Researchers are launching a large study on Monday to assess the consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic on the physical and mental health of French people.

Its ambition is to recruit ten thousand volunteers.

"We realized that the situation was going to last and that beyond people with Covid or other pathologies, there was going to have an impact on our lifestyles", explains to AFP Gérard Raymond, president of France Assos Santé, a network of 85 patient associations at the initiative of this study called “Vivre-Covid19”.

Anxiety and deprogramming of care

Unique in its kind, it plans to recruit 10,000 major participants in mainland France who, until May 2022, will be invited to answer a questionnaire every month.

The study cohort includes chronically ill people, people with disabilities, caregivers and the healthy.

According to Caroline Guyot, seconded to France Assos Santé to support the project and notably ensure the legal framework, the questions relate to “the three themes of anxiety, care and everyday life”.

A first pilot phase was carried out in the spring, during the first confinement, with 2,000 respondents.

The first returns show an anxiety felt by 78.9% of the people questioned and a degraded care for 61.5%, who had an unscheduled appointment (without a new date proposed in 32.9% of cases).

Postponement of surgeries and consultations

"The number of responses from the pilot phase is too low to say that we have solid results, these are trends that show something but let's wait: statistically, we need to have more respondents to be able to say that our results are correct, ”insists Caroline Guyot.

Data from the French Hospital Federation (FHF) nevertheless confirms a massive postponement of surgical and medical procedures with "two million stays that have not been carried out" in public and private health establishments between mid-March and the end of June.

"There was a real impact from the first wave with more extrahospital cardiac arrests: people did not go to the emergency room because they were afraid or the Samu was not reachable", testifies Professor Gérard Helft, of the French Federation of Cardiology.

A study to face the future

A general practitioner from Val-d'Oise told AFP the recent case of a patient "followed for heart failure associated with renal failure who had to see a nephrologist during the summer but did not make an appointment you for fear of catching the Covid.

We end up with a significant deterioration in his renal function, which requires urgent specialist advice and an adjustment of his treatments ”.

The geneticist Axel Kahn, president of the National League against cancer (member of France Assos Santé), welcomes AFP a study "essential" to prepare in case of "new coup Trafalgar which bottlenecks hospitals".

For example, he advocates for the creation of cancer centers in all regions, "centers dedicated to the essential continuity of care which cannot be postponed".

The impact study is scheduled until May 2022. The first results are expected in May.

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  • Covid 19

  • Health

  • epidemic

  • study

  • Coronavirus