ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19 has changed daily practice in medicine and affected teaching as well as research activities of medical personnel. Meanwhile, the pandemic 's impact on private life and responsibilities for dependents also affected health care workers in rheumatology. Objectives: To examine the adaptability of clinician-researchers in rheumatology in a time of crisis focusing on academic output in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic and to investigate the professional and private burden experienced by health care workers in rheumatology. Methods: A systematic search in PubMed, medRxiv and bioRxiv for reports of rheumatic diseases and COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 submitted (or published) from January 1 to June 30 2020 was carried out. As comparison, publications from April 6 to 13 2019 of the same rheumatic diseases without COVID-19 were analysed in terms of author characteristics and journal metrics. Additionally, a questionnaire was circulated via EULAR countries rheumatology societies and individual working group members. The participants were asked to answer 43 questions regarding their family situation, professional background, research output, changes in work and private responsibilities during the pandemic as well as the burden experienced. Responses were collected using an online survey tool and data analyses performed with SPSS Statistics 25;missing variable analysis was performed, excluding records with >15% missing responses. Descriptive and summary statistics were calculated for the entire dataset and split by gender. Results: Whereas the overall number of publications and authors was equal between 2020 and 2019, the portion of female first authors of review articles and original studies decreased substantially in the first phase of the pandemic (Table 1). The numerical contribution of female authors in highly ranked journals (impact factor>6) was comparable in 2019 and 2020, however, the percentage of female first authors dropped from 50% to 32% (P=0.07). In the survey, a total dataset was available for N=180 responders. On average, female respondents (52.5%) were younger, more likely to live alone (19,1% vs 10,5%) and have no caring responsibilities (51.1% vs. 36.3%) than male respondents. Male doctors were more often tenure-track/tenured or chairmen (31.4% vs 12.8% female) and worked less often part-time (9,3% vs. 19.1%). Unpaid overtime hours of all participants were striking with 46.3/44,2% (female/male) reporting to accumulate >10 hours/ week. Regarding gender differences in scientific output, male respondents more frequently revealed >20 publications as first (57,6% vs. 26,9%) or last authors (34.1% vs. 10,1%). Similarly, 44,7% of male respondents reported a last author publication during COVID-19 vs. 26,4% of female respondents. While female and male respondents reported similar experience of burden during the pandemic, more female respondents reported increased family care as a major source of this (38,2% vs. 22,2%). Both genders would like to see increased support from superiors and official institutions. Conclusion: In a time of acute crisis, the adaptability of scientifically active female health care workers in rheumatology is lower than that of their male counterparts. This is reflected in a lower scientific output, especially as first or last authors. However, the burden experienced in the current pandemic is similar between the genders. (Table Presented).