Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Nov 2, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 20, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 22, 2021
Characterizing Healthcare Delays and Interruptions in the US During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Data from an Internet-Based Cross-Sectional Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has broader geographic spread and potentially longer lasting effects than previous disasters. Necessary infection prevention precautions for the transmission of COVID-19 resulted in delays and cancellations of in-person healthcare services, especially at the outset of the pandemic.
Objective:
For a US sample, we examined the prevalence of delays and interruptions to healthcare at the outset of the pandemic and characterized the reasons.
Methods:
As part of an internet-based questionnaire distributed on social media, we asked 2,364 US-based convenience sample about delays/interruptions to their healthcare.
Results:
Almost half (n = 1,159, 49%) of participants reported experiencing delays/interruptions. The top three reported types of care affected included: 1) dental, orthodontal care (n = 351, 37%); 2) routine, primary, preventative care (n = 269, 29%); and 3) imaging, testing diagnostics (n = 151, 16%). Further, the top barrier to receiving healthcare was reported to be fear of getting infected by 34% of respondents.
Conclusions:
Lessons learned from the initial surge of COVID-19 cases can help inform systemic mitigation strategies for future potential disruptions. More research on healthcare delays during the pandemic is needed, including short- and long-term impacts on patient-level outcomes including clinical, mental health, quality of life, and pain.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.