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Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch?
OBJECTIVES: 1) To explore the possible impact of the pandemic on the health seeking behavior of the patients, 2) To explore the relation of socio-demographics on the utility of health-care facilities. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted by enrolling all patients ≥15 years of age presen...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Professional Medical Publications
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7931298/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33679953 http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.2.3536 |
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author | Alam, Laima Kazmi, Syed Kumail Hasan Alam, Mafaza Faraid, Varqa |
author_facet | Alam, Laima Kazmi, Syed Kumail Hasan Alam, Mafaza Faraid, Varqa |
author_sort | Alam, Laima |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVES: 1) To explore the possible impact of the pandemic on the health seeking behavior of the patients, 2) To explore the relation of socio-demographics on the utility of health-care facilities. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted by enrolling all patients ≥15 years of age presenting to the Out-Patient-Department of three main public-hospitals after obtaining ethical committee approval. A questionnaire with validated Urdu translation was filled by each participant that included socio-demographic data, pre-Covid and Covid-19 era health seeking behaviors and the impact of the pandemic on the utilization of healthcare facilities. Data was analyzed using SPSS V.19. RESULTS: A total of 393 patients were enrolled with a male preponderance (72%) and a median age range of 31-45 years. Fifty-eight percent of the study population was unemployed and 47.3% were seeking follow up care. The frequency of ER and multiple (>4 times) OPD visits were significantly decreased in the Covid-19 times whereas, the laboratory and radiology services were largely unaffected. A significant number of patients were not satisfied with the current healthcare facilities that was seen irrespective of the socio-demographic status. Emergency Room and radiology services were largely unaffected whereas, elective procedures and laboratory facilities were reported to be severely affected or delayed in relation to socio-demographic variables. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare inequalities have widened and depression has shown a sharp rise during this pandemic. The over-burdened healthcare facilities at the verge of collapse may miss out on the chronic non-Covid patients which would ultimately lead to increased morbidity and mortality. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7931298 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Professional Medical Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79312982021-03-05 Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? Alam, Laima Kazmi, Syed Kumail Hasan Alam, Mafaza Faraid, Varqa Pak J Med Sci Original Article OBJECTIVES: 1) To explore the possible impact of the pandemic on the health seeking behavior of the patients, 2) To explore the relation of socio-demographics on the utility of health-care facilities. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted by enrolling all patients ≥15 years of age presenting to the Out-Patient-Department of three main public-hospitals after obtaining ethical committee approval. A questionnaire with validated Urdu translation was filled by each participant that included socio-demographic data, pre-Covid and Covid-19 era health seeking behaviors and the impact of the pandemic on the utilization of healthcare facilities. Data was analyzed using SPSS V.19. RESULTS: A total of 393 patients were enrolled with a male preponderance (72%) and a median age range of 31-45 years. Fifty-eight percent of the study population was unemployed and 47.3% were seeking follow up care. The frequency of ER and multiple (>4 times) OPD visits were significantly decreased in the Covid-19 times whereas, the laboratory and radiology services were largely unaffected. A significant number of patients were not satisfied with the current healthcare facilities that was seen irrespective of the socio-demographic status. Emergency Room and radiology services were largely unaffected whereas, elective procedures and laboratory facilities were reported to be severely affected or delayed in relation to socio-demographic variables. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare inequalities have widened and depression has shown a sharp rise during this pandemic. The over-burdened healthcare facilities at the verge of collapse may miss out on the chronic non-Covid patients which would ultimately lead to increased morbidity and mortality. Professional Medical Publications 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7931298/ /pubmed/33679953 http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.2.3536 Text en Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Alam, Laima Kazmi, Syed Kumail Hasan Alam, Mafaza Faraid, Varqa Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title | Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title_full | Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title_fullStr | Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title_full_unstemmed | Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title_short | Amid COVID-19 pandemic, are non-COVID patients left in the lurch? |
title_sort | amid covid-19 pandemic, are non-covid patients left in the lurch? |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7931298/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33679953 http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.2.3536 |
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