JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In recent years, non-communicable diseases have globally shown an increasing impact on health status with disproportionately higher rates in developing countries. During the outbreak, health workers, equipment, and facilities have been reallocated to address the influx of patients with COVID-19. Restructuring of the health system could result in the closure of some health facilities

Objective:

To determine the impact of COVID-19 on the performance of NCDs programs implemented in the PHCs in Al-Rusafa DOH through comparing the performance indicators of 2019 and 2020 and identify the potential causes of the changes.

Methods:

The study was conducted in Baghdad Al-Rusafa during the period from April to June 2021. Al-Rusafa Directorate of health. A systematic sample was used to enroll twenty primary health care centers. The descriptive analysis focused on frequencies, and percentages. Continuous variables will be presented as mean ± Standard Deviation and the independent t-test was used to assess statistical significance. A P-value of less than 0.05 will be considered statistically significant.

Results:

There was a decrease in the number of served patients reaching zero in some units. Most staff were partially or completely assigned to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a decline in yearly need of education material and folders for programs 2020, Awareness campaigns performed in 2019 and 2020, the main reasons to decline the services were the closure of outpatient services as per government directive, closure of outpatient disease-specific consultation clinics, and decrease in outpatient volume due to patients not presenting

Conclusions:

COVID-19 pandemic affected the NCD services in Iraq, including disruption of many aspects of these services.