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Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health
The COVID-19 pandemic began impacting Europe in early 2020, posing significant challenges for individuals requiring care. This group is particularly susceptible to severe COVID-19 infections and depends on regular health care services. In this article, we examine the situation of European care recip...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10593209/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37871044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287158 |
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author | Bergmann, Michael Wagner, Melanie |
author_facet | Bergmann, Michael Wagner, Melanie |
author_sort | Bergmann, Michael |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic began impacting Europe in early 2020, posing significant challenges for individuals requiring care. This group is particularly susceptible to severe COVID-19 infections and depends on regular health care services. In this article, we examine the situation of European care recipients aged 50 years and older 18 months after the pandemic outbreak and compare it to the initial phase of the pandemic. In the descriptive section, we illustrate the development of (unmet) care needs and access to health care throughout the pandemic. Additionally, we explore regional variations in health care receipt across Europe. In the analytical section, we shed light on the mid- and long-term health consequences of COVID-19-related restrictions on accessing health care services by making comparisons between care recipients and individuals without care needs. We conducted an analysis using data from the representative Corona Surveys of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Our study examines changes in approximately 3,400 care-dependent older Europeans (aged 50+) interviewed in 2020 and 2021, comparing them with more than 45,000 respondents not receiving care. The dataset provides a cross-national perspective on care recipients across 27 European countries and Israel. Our findings reveal that in 2021, compared to the previous year, difficulties in obtaining personal care from someone outside the household were significantly reduced in Western and Southern European countries. Access to health care services improved over the course of the pandemic, particularly with respect to medical treatments and appointments that had been canceled by health care institutions. However, even 18 months after the COVID-19 outbreak, a considerable number of treatments had been postponed either by respondents themselves or by health care institutions. These delayed medical treatments had adverse effects on the physical and mental health of both care receivers and individuals who did not rely on care. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10593209 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105932092023-10-24 Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health Bergmann, Michael Wagner, Melanie PLoS One Research Article The COVID-19 pandemic began impacting Europe in early 2020, posing significant challenges for individuals requiring care. This group is particularly susceptible to severe COVID-19 infections and depends on regular health care services. In this article, we examine the situation of European care recipients aged 50 years and older 18 months after the pandemic outbreak and compare it to the initial phase of the pandemic. In the descriptive section, we illustrate the development of (unmet) care needs and access to health care throughout the pandemic. Additionally, we explore regional variations in health care receipt across Europe. In the analytical section, we shed light on the mid- and long-term health consequences of COVID-19-related restrictions on accessing health care services by making comparisons between care recipients and individuals without care needs. We conducted an analysis using data from the representative Corona Surveys of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Our study examines changes in approximately 3,400 care-dependent older Europeans (aged 50+) interviewed in 2020 and 2021, comparing them with more than 45,000 respondents not receiving care. The dataset provides a cross-national perspective on care recipients across 27 European countries and Israel. Our findings reveal that in 2021, compared to the previous year, difficulties in obtaining personal care from someone outside the household were significantly reduced in Western and Southern European countries. Access to health care services improved over the course of the pandemic, particularly with respect to medical treatments and appointments that had been canceled by health care institutions. However, even 18 months after the COVID-19 outbreak, a considerable number of treatments had been postponed either by respondents themselves or by health care institutions. These delayed medical treatments had adverse effects on the physical and mental health of both care receivers and individuals who did not rely on care. Public Library of Science 2023-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC10593209/ /pubmed/37871044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287158 Text en © 2023 Bergmann, Wagner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Bergmann, Michael Wagner, Melanie Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title | Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title_full | Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title_fullStr | Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title_full_unstemmed | Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title_short | Back to normal? The health care situation of home care receivers across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
title_sort | back to normal? the health care situation of home care receivers across europe during the covid-19 pandemic and its implications on health |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10593209/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37871044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287158 |
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