The Role of a Whatsapp Clinical Discussion Group Pak Armed Forces Med J 2020; 70 COVID-19 (2): S539-45 S539 THE ROLE OF A WHATSAPP CLINICAL DISCUSSION GROUP IN THE CLINICAL MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19 CASES: AN EXPERIENCE OF TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN Hafiza Swaiba Afzal, Nauman Aziz, Muhammad Waseem, Zahid Kamal, Ahmad Zeeshan Jamil, Muhammad Junaid Iqbal Sahiwal Medical College, Sahiwal Pakistan ABSTRACT Objective: To assess the usefulness of the Whatsapp group made for managing the patients of COVID-19 at different govt. sector hospitals of Sahiwal, Punjab. Study Design: A web-based cross-sectional analytical survey. Place and Duration of Study: Sahiwal Medical College Sahiwal, from 1 st June to 10 th June 2020. Methodology: A validated questionnaire was distributed among 95 members of the Whatsapp group at Sahiwal Medical College Sahiwal. Results were assessed by using SPSS version-24. Results: The response rate of our study was 75.78%. Most were younger than 30 years of age (69.40%) and majority (80.60%) belonged to clinical departments. Out of 58 clinical side doctors, 44 (75.86) belonged to medicine and allied departments while 14 (24.14%) belong to surgery and allied departments. Results showed that the helpful discussion in the group increased the confidence of the participants by 4.24 times with 95% C.I. of 2.76 to 6.52. Speedy management of the patients due to Whatsapp group also increased the confidence of the study participants by 6.30 times with 95% C.I. of 2.03 to 19.49. Discussions on Whatsapp group and increase in knowledge of participants related to COVID-19 through Whatsapp also helped participants to speed up the management of the patients by 3.77 times with 95% C.I. of 2.54 to 5.61. Conclusion: Hence our study concludes that the usefulness of the Whatsapp group for management of COVID-19 patients was very well perceived by our survey population. It increased their confidence in managing the patients of COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19, Perceived usefulness, Whatsapp group. INTRODUCTION COVID-19 fell upon the humanity like a wrath and impacted all the nations irrespective of the ethnicity, culture and economy 1 . As most were terrified by this pandemic but still few stood firm as front line warriors in countering the situation 2 . Healthcare workers were among them as the patient tool rose dramatically within days after the first case reported in China in Dec, 2019. Many healthcare workers even lost their lives while managing the patients of COVID-19 3 . Like other countries almost all over the world, Pakistan also affected by COVID-19 as first case reported here on 26th Feb, 2020 4 . Since then there is a rise in rise in cases of COVID-19 across the country generally and in Punjab province particularly. Doctors and paramedic staff belonging to this part of the world also performed their duties with the maximum of their capabilities 5 . They worked with extra shifts and over nightly without much incentive. Many lost their lives as well. But due to their utmost efforts the pandemic of COVID-19 is being fought bravely and being dealt with accordingly 6 . As the patients of COVID-19 presented to outdoors with mild to high severity, the need for emergency consultation rose from senior pro- fessors and consultants. It became slightly diffi- cult for on duty doctors to consult with themin emergency situations 8 specially related to mana- gement of COVID-19 patients as the senior pros were also working on other domains of COVID- 19 at the same time. So, a Whatsapp group was made by including all the duty doctors of COVID-19 isolation wards and flu counters at This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Correspondence: Dr Nauman Aziz, Assistant Prof of Physiology, Sahiwal Medical College, Sahiwal Pakistan Received: 15 Jul 2020; revised received: 06 Aug 2020; accepted: 17 Aug 2020 nauman188@gmail.com Original Article Open Access