• Stuart Howard, Hamed Akhlaghi, Tess Watson, Gerard M O'Reilly, and Jonathan Karro.
• Emergency Department, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Emerg Med Australas. 2022 Oct 1; 34 (5): 812-817.

ObjectiveTo quantify the attitude ED clinicians hold towards patients presenting with different medical conditions, including a novel pandemic condition.MethodsA cross-sectional study of emergency doctors and nurses utilising the Medical Condition Regard Scale (MCRS); a validated tool used to capture the bias and emotions of clinicians towards individual medical conditions. The five conditions presented to participants each represent a classical medical, complex medical, psychiatric/substance use, somatoform and a novel medical condition.ResultsOne hundred and ninety-six clinicians were included in the study including 116 nurses and 80 doctors. Concerning each condition, both medical and nursing staff demonstrated the highest regard for a classical medical condition (58 ± 5 and 57 ± 6, respectively). Significantly different from the classical medical condition, the lowest MCRS scores were for the somatoform condition (36 ± 10) for emergency doctors and the substance use condition (39 ± 11) for emergency nurses. Regard for a novel condition (i.e., COVID-19 infection) was comparably high among both cohorts.ConclusionEmergency doctors and nurses generally hold lower regard for complex medical conditions with behavioural components, including substance use disorders and somatoform conditions.© 2022 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.

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