Pandemic trends in health care use: From the hospital bed to self-care with COVID-19.
PLoS One
; 17(3): e0265812, 2022.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1759963
ABSTRACT
AIM:
To explore whether the acute 30-day burden of COVID-19 on health care use has changed from February 2020 to February 2022.METHODS:
In all Norwegians (N = 493 520) who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in four pandemic waves (February 26th, 2020 -February 16th, 2021 (1st wave dominated by the Wuhan strain), February 17th-July 10th, 2021 (2nd wave dominated by the Alpha variant), July 11th-December 27th, 2021 (3rd wave dominated by the Delta variant), and December 28th, 2021 -January 14th, 2022 (4th wave dominated by the Omicron variant)), we studied the age- and sex-specific share of patients (by age groups 1-19, 20-67, and 68 or more) who had 1) Relied on self-care, 2) used outpatient care (visiting general practitioners or emergency ward for COVID-19), and 3) used inpatient care (hospitalized ≥24 hours with COVID-19).RESULTS:
We find a remarkable decline in the use of health care services among COVID-19 patients for all age/sex groups throughout the pandemic. From 83% [95%CI = 83%-84%] visiting outpatient care in the first wave, to 80% [81%-81%], 69% [69%-69%], and 59% [59%-59%] in the second, third, and fourth wave. Similarly, from 4.9% [95%CI = 4.7%-5.0%] visiting inpatient care in the first wave, to 3.6% [3.4%-3.7%], 1.4% [1.3%-1.4%], and 0.5% [0.4%-0.5%]. Of persons testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, 41% [41%-41%] relied on self-care in the 30 days after testing positive in the fourth wave, compared to 16% [15%-16%] in the first wave.CONCLUSION:
From 2020 to 2022, the use of COVID-19 related outpatient care services decreased with 29%, whereas the use of COVID-19 related inpatient care services decreased with 80%.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Self Care
/
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
/
COVID-19
/
Hospitalization
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Infant
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
PLoS One
Journal subject:
Science
/
Medicine
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Journal.pone.0265812
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