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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a catastrophic event worldwide. Since then, people’s way of living has changed in terms of personal behavior, social interaction, and medical-seeking behavior, including change of the emergency department (ED) visiting pa...

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Autores principales: Chih-Hung Tai, Henry, Kao, Yi-Hao, Lai, Yen-Wen, Chen, Jiann-Hwa, Chen, Wei-Lung, Chung, Jui-Yuan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10243245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37280535
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00819-5
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author Chih-Hung Tai, Henry
Kao, Yi-Hao
Lai, Yen-Wen
Chen, Jiann-Hwa
Chen, Wei-Lung
Chung, Jui-Yuan
author_facet Chih-Hung Tai, Henry
Kao, Yi-Hao
Lai, Yen-Wen
Chen, Jiann-Hwa
Chen, Wei-Lung
Chung, Jui-Yuan
author_sort Chih-Hung Tai, Henry
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a catastrophic event worldwide. Since then, people’s way of living has changed in terms of personal behavior, social interaction, and medical-seeking behavior, including change of the emergency department (ED) visiting patterns. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ED visiting patterns of the older people to explore its variable expression with the intention of ameliorating an effective and suitable response to public health emergencies. METHODS: This was a retrospective study conducted in three hospitals of the Cathay Health System in Taiwan. Patients aged ≥ 65 years who presented to the ED between January 21, 2020, and April 30, 2020 (pandemic stage), and between January 21, 2019, and April 30, 2019 (pre-pandemic stage) were enrolled in the study. Basic demographics, including visit characteristics, disposition, and chief complaints of the patients visiting the ED between these two periods of time, were compared and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 16,655 older people were included in this study. A 20.91% reduction in ED older adult patient visits was noted during the pandemic period. During the pandemic, there was a decrease in ambulance use among elderly patients visiting the ED, with the proportion decreasing from 16.90 to 16.58%. Chief complaints of fever, upper respiratory infections, psychological and social problems increased, with incidence risk ratios (IRRs) of 1.12, 1.23, 1.25, and 5.2, respectively. Meanwhile, the incidence of both non-life-threatening and life-threatening complaints decreased, with IRRs of 0.72 and 0.83, respectively. CONCLUSION: Health education regarding life-threatening symptom signs among older adult patients and avocation of the proper timing to seek medical attention via ambulance were crucial issues during the pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-102432452023-06-07 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits Chih-Hung Tai, Henry Kao, Yi-Hao Lai, Yen-Wen Chen, Jiann-Hwa Chen, Wei-Lung Chung, Jui-Yuan BMC Emerg Med Research BACKGROUND: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a catastrophic event worldwide. Since then, people’s way of living has changed in terms of personal behavior, social interaction, and medical-seeking behavior, including change of the emergency department (ED) visiting patterns. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ED visiting patterns of the older people to explore its variable expression with the intention of ameliorating an effective and suitable response to public health emergencies. METHODS: This was a retrospective study conducted in three hospitals of the Cathay Health System in Taiwan. Patients aged ≥ 65 years who presented to the ED between January 21, 2020, and April 30, 2020 (pandemic stage), and between January 21, 2019, and April 30, 2019 (pre-pandemic stage) were enrolled in the study. Basic demographics, including visit characteristics, disposition, and chief complaints of the patients visiting the ED between these two periods of time, were compared and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 16,655 older people were included in this study. A 20.91% reduction in ED older adult patient visits was noted during the pandemic period. During the pandemic, there was a decrease in ambulance use among elderly patients visiting the ED, with the proportion decreasing from 16.90 to 16.58%. Chief complaints of fever, upper respiratory infections, psychological and social problems increased, with incidence risk ratios (IRRs) of 1.12, 1.23, 1.25, and 5.2, respectively. Meanwhile, the incidence of both non-life-threatening and life-threatening complaints decreased, with IRRs of 0.72 and 0.83, respectively. CONCLUSION: Health education regarding life-threatening symptom signs among older adult patients and avocation of the proper timing to seek medical attention via ambulance were crucial issues during the pandemic. BioMed Central 2023-06-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10243245/ /pubmed/37280535 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00819-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Chih-Hung Tai, Henry
Kao, Yi-Hao
Lai, Yen-Wen
Chen, Jiann-Hwa
Chen, Wei-Lung
Chung, Jui-Yuan
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title_full Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title_fullStr Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title_full_unstemmed Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title_short Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
title_sort impact of the covid-19 pandemic on medical-seeking behavior in older adults by comparing the presenting complaints of the emergency department visits
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10243245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37280535
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00819-5
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