Corona virus infection and the risk of contagiousness to medical personnel or
patients during endoscopy necessitated further measures in the endoscopy
rooms. The objective of this study was to assess the experience of patients in
endoscopy rooms during the COVID-19 epidemic in West Africa. Patients
and Methods: This was a multicenter cross-sectional study that took place
over a period of 3 months (June to August 2020) in endoscopy centers in
Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger. An online questionnaire was sent to patients
who had performed upper digestive endoscopies, in 8 digestive endoscopy
centers including private, public and religious structures. Depending on the
choice of patients, questionnaires were either sent electronically or completed
in the endoscopy room with the help of field investigators. The choice of centers
was random from the list of centers and descriptive analyses were carried
out. Results: A total of 294 patients responded to the online questionnaire.
There were 37 lower and 257 upper gastrointestinal endoscopies. The female
sex represented 52.1%. The wait times for obtaining an endoscopy appointment
were considered satisfactory by 281 patients 95.6%. In the endoscopy
departments, 112 patients, or 38.1%, were questioned about the risk factors
for contamination of SARS-CoV-2. Among the risk factors found, 6 patients (2.0%) would have traveled abroad in the 2 weeks preceding the examination,
4 patients 1.4% had already been in contact with a subject at risk. The most
frequent symptoms were chest pain (80 cases; 27.2%), flu-like syndrome (29
cases; 9.9%), cough (40 cases; 13.6%), fever (46 cases; 15.6%). In contrast,
ageusia (7 cases; 2.4%) and anosmia (5 cases; 1.7%) were only found in very
few patients. Twenty-two patients (7.5%) felt highly exposed to COVID-19
during the endoscopy examination and 144 patients (48.9%) rated the examination
as satisfactory. Conclusion: Gastrointestinal symptoms initially
described as rare are being reported with increasing frequency in studies and
may motivate the request for endoscopy examinations. However, the risk associated
with infection with SARS-CoV-2 does not seem to have been sufficiently
taken into account in endoscopy centers in the 3 countries.