Medical appointments and provision of medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mainz, Germany

Previous evidence suggested that non-COVID-19-related medical care was reduced during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it remained unclear whether or to which extent this effect lasted beyond the first wave, or existed in a longer time frame. Here, we consider questionnaire data of the G...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-01, Vol.18 (1), p.e0280292-e0280292
Main Authors: Schepers, Markus, Schmidtmann, Irene, Zahn, Daniela, Wild, Philipp, Beutel, Manfred, Schuster, Alexander K, Münzel, Thomas, Lackner, Karl J, Geschke, Katharina, Schattenberg, Jörn, Baumkötter, Rieke, Yilmaz, Simge, Wollschläger, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appointments and Schedules
Cancer
Care and treatment
Chemotherapy
Chi-square test
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Dentistry
Dentists
Diabetes
Ethics
Evaluation
Family physicians
Fear & phobias
Germany - epidemiology
Health care
Health services
Humans
Infections
Medical appointments
Medical care
Medical personnel
Medicine and Health Sciences
Pandemics
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
Patient Care
Patients
Public health administration
Quality management
Questionnaires
Regression analysis
Research and Analysis Methods
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Stroke
Variables
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Summary:Previous evidence suggested that non-COVID-19-related medical care was reduced during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it remained unclear whether or to which extent this effect lasted beyond the first wave, or existed in a longer time frame. Here, we consider questionnaire data of the Gutenberg-COVID-19 study together with pre-pandemic baseline data of the Gutenberg Health Study concerning the region around Mainz, Germany, to study the effects of the pandemic on the provision of medical care until April 2021. We observed that the proportion of cancelled medical appointments was low and that the fraction of participants with a medical appointment as an indicator for the number of appointments being made was in line with pre-pandemic levels. Appointments were more likely cancelled by the patient (rather than the provider), and more likely cancelled by medical specialists such as dentists or ophthalmologists (rather than GPs). In conclusion, we found some evidence that, at least with regard to realized appointments, the medical system and the provision of medical care were not harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic on a longer time scale.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0280292