Communications agency, Pegasus, has asked over 650 vets, nurses, students and veterinary support staff to share their experience of COVID-19, with the aim of better understanding how animal health companies can best support and communicate with the profession.
Pegasus has built a panel of independent veterinary professionals to enable rapid insight gathering and the impressive response to the survey over just a few days indicates that perhaps we haven’t reached COVID-overload just yet.
Lizzie Erian Round, veterinary advisor at Pegasus said: “Through our survey, vet professionals from a variety of roles shared their thoughts and experiences on a number of topics. These ranged from their top personal and professional challenges to how their media and CPD consumption has changed during lockdown and what good support and communication from animal health companies looks like to them.”
Pegasus is offering animal health marketing teams a free 30-minute Zoom meeting to present the full findings of the research. The results showed some standout themes, which the Zoom meeting and full report cover in more depth. These include:
COVID-19 – a time to change tact?
Half (48 percent) of veterinary professionals are equally worried about their personal and professional life. From worries about exposure to COVID-19 at work, to mental and financial health; veterinary professionals’ concerns cover a huge spectrum of some of the most fundamental issues. And while they perceive their clients’ worries to be just as varied, these may be at odds with their own key focus of delivering an essential service.
61 percent are working fewer hours or not working at all with only 20 percent who are working the same shifts. These are concerns that the veterinary industry and animal health companies should be taking note, with respondents citing them as top sources of practical and emotional support.
However, respondents were very clear that animal health organisations should not carry on advertising as normal during COVID-19; with the majority (86 percent) suggesting that companies in the animal health sector need to change tact.
On a more positive note, half (51 percent) report spending more time reading veterinary-related materials as a result of the lockdown and 69 percent say animal health companies can best support them by providing online CPD while learning at home.
Lasting change
Over and above current challenges, veterinary professionals believe that COVID-19 is going to have lasting consequences for the way they practice and how owners interact with their pets. It’s clear we should be asking ourselves what strategies can we implement today that will help support vets in the future?
For the full results or to find out how our veterinary insights panel could help you, get in touch at animal@thisispegasus.co.uk.
Pegasus is an Ashfield company, part of UDG Healthcare plc.
