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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...

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Autores principales: Alam, Laima, Kazmi, Syed Kumail Hasan, Alam, Mafaza, Faraid, Varqa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Professional Medical Publications 2021
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.
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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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