The Trend of the Burden of Allergic Rhinitis Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic in the Urban Population of Perak, Malaysia

AIMS: This study aims to determine the trend of allergic rhinitis (AR) prevalence in a tertiary hospital between 2017 and 2022, and to compare its prevalence pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study involving the extraction of all Malaysian patients’ medical records who were diagnosed with AR and attended the otorhinolaryngology outpatient clinic of a government-funded tertiary hospital in Malaysia between 2017 and 2022. RESULTS: 3,744 cases out of the 57,968 first-encounter outpatient visits to the otorhinolaryngology clinic were extracted for analysis. Overall, the prevalence of AR cases ranged from 1.83 to 9.23% between 2017 and 2022. There was a significant drop of 21.38 to 70.22% between the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic (p < 0.001). Males (0.34 to 1.60%) were more prevalent in the 6 to 18 year old than females (0.09 to 1.23%). The trend shifted with age, whereby females (0.50 to 2.45%) experienced a higher prevalence than males (0.21 to 1.77%) as they aged from 19 to 59. The Malay (1.01 to 4.59%) demonstrated a two-time higher prevalence than the Chinese (0.30 to 2.01%) and Indian (0.40 to 2.14%) ethnicities. After stratifying by gender and ethnicity, Indian women (0.17 to 1.09%) had a higher rate of AR than their Chinese counterparts (0.12 to 0.99%) across all years. CONCLUSION: The AR prevalence consistently ranged from 8.14 to 9.23% pre-pandemic. A remarkable drop was observed post-pandemic, ranging from 1.83 to 6.40%. A gender shift from male to female predominance as age progressed. The Malay had the highest prevalence of AR.