A cross-sectional study of patients presenting for hospital-based screening for COVID-19: risk of disease, and healthcare access preferences.

Amanda Rojek; Martin Dutch; Daniel Peyton; Rachel Pelly; Mark Putland; Harriet Hiscock; Jonathan Knott

Setting: The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) is a metropolitan tertiary hospital service, with an emergency department that manages 80 000 patients per year. Co-located with this emergency department, a SARS-CoV-2 screening clinic was established on 25/01/2020 to deal with the surge in patients presenting for screening. (7) Design and Participants: A consecutive sample of patients presenting to the SARS-CoV-2 screening clinic from 18/03/2020 to 30/03/2020 were invited to complete a brief survey as part of their clinic registration process. Patients were included if they were aged 16 years or older, able to complete the self-registration survey independently, or communicate to a staff member who could complete it on their behalf. Patients were excluded if they required urgent medical treatment (as assessed by triage staff) because they were re-streamed from the screening are into the resuscitation space of the ED.