Abstract
Background: Adult well visits declined during COVID-19, but literature is inconsistent in regard to whether childhood well visits declined. We determined if the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a change in well visits among infants, children, adolescents and adults before, compared to during the COVID-19 pandemic, including through the emergence of the Delta variant.
Methods: De-identified electronic health care data came from a multi-state Midwest health care system. Eligible patients (n = 798,571) had ≥ 1 well visit between 7/1/2018 and 6/30/2021. Trends in well visits per month for children (< 1, 1-4, 5-11, 12-17 years) and adults (18-39, 40-64, ≥ 65 years) over 3-years were assessed using Joinpoint regression models and monthly percent change (MPC).
Results: Well visits remained stable for infants (< 1 year of age) (MPC = -0.1; 95% CI = -0.3, 0.1). For children 1-4 years and all adults, visits were stable prior to 2020, decreased from 1/2020 to 4/2020 (MPC range -20 to -40), increased from 4/2020-7/2020 (MPC range 30 to 72), and remained stable after 7/2020. Children 5-17 had seasonal variation in visits where low points occurred in Jan/Feb 2019 and high points in Aug 2019 (start of school year); however, the low point in 2020 occurred in April 2020 and the seasonal variation normalized after this.
Conclusions: In a large Mid-western health care system, infant well visits did not decline at the onset (3/1/2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although well visits for all other ages decreased to a low point in 4/2020, a rapid return to pre-pandemic utilization rates occurred by 7/2020. The brief decrease in preventive care may have had little impact on health.
Keywords: COVID-19; Cohort; Family medicine; Pandemic; Pediatrics; Prevention; Primary care; Well visit.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, primary care, pandemic, prevention, pediatrics, Cohort, Family medicine, Well visit., 【초록키워드】 Health care, children, COVID-19 pandemic, Variation, delta variant, Infant, Infants, Adults, family, Health, Regression model, Patient, age, childhood, trend, Health care system, Care, Family medicine, seasonal variation, 95% CI, Eligible patients, decrease, well, occurred, remained, declined, adolescents and adult, normalized, were assessed, 【제목키워드】 pediatric, Infant, retrospective cohort study,