Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the trajectories of acute upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), COVID-19, and the use of antibiotics in Finland during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Design: Population-based cohort study.
Setting: Electronic medical records from a nationwide healthcare chain in Finland.
Participants: 833 444 patients from a cohort of 1 970 013 Finns who had used medical services between 2017 and 2020.
Main outcome measures: Number of weekly patients of acute URTIs, COVID-19, and the prescribed number of antibiotics in Finland between 6 January 2020 and 21 June 2020. We estimated the respective expected numbers from 1 March 2020 onward using autoregressive integrated moving average model from 1 January 2017 to 1 March 2020. We assessed the public interest in COVID-19 by collecting Google search trend frequencies.
Results: There was a rapid increase in COVID-related internet searches between weeks 10 and 12. At the same time, there was a 106% increase in diagnoses of acute URTIs, from 410 per 100 000 inhabitants to 845 per 100 000. The first COVID-19 cases were diagnosed on week 11. Prescriptions for URTI-related antibiotics declined by 71% (403 per 100 000 to 117 per 100 000) between weeks 11 and 15 while no relevant change took place in prescriptions of antibiotics for urinary tract infections.
Conclusions: At the beginning of the epidemic, many people contacted healthcare professionals with relatively mild symptoms, as indicated by the reduced rate of URTI-antibiotics prescriptions. Our findings indicate that health service providers should be prepared for rapid variations in service demand. Securing access of true COVID-19 patients to proper diagnostics, care and isolation measures may help in preventing the spread of the disease.
Keywords: COVID-19; epidemiology; respiratory infections.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, respiratory infections, Epidemiology, 【초록키워드】 respiratory infections, Variation, Infection, Antibiotics, outcome, diagnostics, cohort study, Spread, Cohort, healthcare, urinary tract infections, Patient, Isolation, trajectory, Care, upper respiratory tract, mild symptoms, diagnose, Healthcare professional, COVID-19 epidemic, COVID-19 patient, Google, medical record, medical service, Health Service, number, frequencies, COVID-19 case, average, help, measure, prescription, rapid increase, the epidemic, evaluate, indicated, diagnosed, the disease, reduced, increase in, expected, declined, Finn, took place, URTIs, use of antibiotics, 【제목키워드】 cohort study, infections, Patient, incidence, upper respiratory tract, Analysis, time, use of antibiotics,