The Impact of COVID-19 on Routine Medical Care and Cancer Screening.
J Gen Intern Med
; 37(6): 1450-1456, 2022 05.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1616227
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
COVID-19 restrictions and fear dramatically changed the use of medical care. Understanding the magnitude of cancelled and postponed appointments and associated factors can help identify approaches to mitigate unmet need.OBJECTIVE:
To determine the proportion of medical visits cancelled or postponed and for whom. We hypothesized that adults with serious medical conditions and those with higher anxiety, depressive symptoms, and avoidance-oriented coping would have more cancellations/postponements.DESIGN:
Four nationally representative cross-sectional surveys conducted online in May, July, October, and December 2020.PARTICIPANTS:
59,747 US adults who completed 15-min online surveys. 69% cooperation rate.MEASURES:
Physical and mental health visits and cancer screening cancelled or postponed over prior 2 months. Plan to cancel or postpone visits over the next 2 months. Relationship with demographics, medical conditions, local COVID-19 death rate, anxiety, depressive symptoms, coping, intolerance of uncertainty, and perceived COVID-19 risk. KEYRESULTS:
Of the 58% (N = 34,868) with a medical appointment during the 2 months before the survey, 64% had an appointment cancelled or postponed in May, decreasing to 37% in December. Of the 41% of respondents with scheduled cancer screening, 20% cancelled/postponed, which was stable May to December. People with more medical conditions were more likely to cancel or postpone medical visits (OR 1.19 per condition, 95% CI 1.16, 1.22) and cancer screening (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.15, 1.24). Race, ethnicity, and income had weak associations with cancelled/postponed visits, local death rate was unrelated, but anxiety and depressive symptoms were strongly related to cancellations, and this grew between May and December.CONCLUSIONS:
Cancelled medical care and cancer screening were more common among persons with medical conditions, anxiety and depression, even after accounting for COVID-19 deaths. Outreach and support to ensure that patients are not avoiding needed care due to anxiety, depression and inaccurate perceptions of risk will be important.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
/
Neoplasms
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Gen Intern Med
Journal subject:
Internal Medicine
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S11606-021-07254-x
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