Sources of Medical Information for Oncology Physicians during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a national cross-sectional survey

Parsons, Helen M; Vogel, Rachel I; Blaes, Anne H; Lou, Emil; Beckwith, Heather; Yuan, Jianling; Hui, Jane Yuet Ching

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has completely transformed the accepted norms and approaches to cancer care delivery in the United States, we sought to understand the sources of medical information that oncology physicians seek and trust. We recruited 486 oncology physicians to an anonymous cross-sectional online survey through social media from March 27, 2020 to April 10, 2020, with 79.2% reporting their sources of medical information during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found a diverse array of reported sources for COVID-19 information that most commonly included professional societies (90.7%), hospital/institutional communications (88.6%) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (69.9%); however, trust in these sources of information varied widely, with professional societies being the most trusted source. These results highlight the important role that professional societies, hospitals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention play in ensuring dissemination of consistent, high-quality practice recommendations for oncology physicians.