Dreyer, HanlieDe Oliveira, KatyaLalloo, VidyaEngelbrecht, Andreas2022-01-132022-01-132022-03Dreyer, H., De Oliveira, K., Lalloo, V. & Engelbrecht, A. 2022, 'A qualitative study of COVID-19 related reasons for delayed presentation of patients with chest pain during the COVID-19 pandemic', African Journal of Emergency Medicine, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 34-38.2211-419X (online)10.1016/j.afjem.2021.10.002http://hdl.handle.net/2263/83301INTRODUCTION : In previous pandemics such as the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, it has been observed that patients with non-pandemic related complaints, delay their presentation to hospital. Similarly, delayed presentation of patients with chest pain during the COVID-19 pandemic has been documented. This qualitative study identified the COVID-19 related reasons which lead to this delay. METHODS : A qualitative study based on 10 individual patient interviews. Half of these were conducted at a public hospital emergency centre (EC) and the other half at a private EC. RESULTS : A variety of psychosocial factors were identified as themes for delayed presentation. Interestingly, the fear of contracting COVID-19 at the hospital was not found to be an important theme in our study. Rather, confusion around hospital protocols during the pandemic was identified as a recurrent theme. DISCUSSION : This study found that confusion about COVID-19 hospital protocols was the major pandemic related delaying factor. A number of themes unrelated to COVID-19 were also identified.en© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.COVID-19 pandemicCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Chest painAcute coronary syndrome (ACS)Delayed presentationQualitative studyHealth sciences articles SDG-03SDG-03: Good health and well-beingHealth sciences articles SDG-04SDG-04: Quality educationArticle