Tag Archive for: lockdown

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Extent of healthcare avoidance during COVID-19

extent of healthcare avoidance during COVID-19 - اجتناب بیماران از دریافت مشاوره پزشکی در زمان قرنطینه

One in five individuals avoided healthcare during lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic, often for potentially urgent symptoms, according to a new study publishing in  PLOS Medicine by Silvan Licher of Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, consultations in both primary and specialist care declined compared to pre-pandemic levels. It is unclear to what extent healthcare avoidance by the general population contributed to these declines. In the new study, researchers sent out a paper questionnaire to 8,732 participants of the Rotterdam Study, a cohort study designed to investigate chronic diseases in mid to late-life, covering several COVID-19 related topics, including healthcare avoidance. 73% of participants responded between April and July 2020 and the final population for the study was 5,656 individuals residing in the same district in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

About one in five (20.2%) of participants reported having avoided healthcare during the pandemic. Of those, 414 participants (36.3% of avoiders) reported symptoms that potentially warranted urgent medical attention, including limb weakness (13.6%), palpitations (10.8%) and chest pain (10.2%). However, there was no data available on the severity of symptoms. Groups most likely to have avoided healthcare included females (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.38-1.82), those with poor self-appreciated health (per level decrease 2.00, 95% CI 1.80‑2.22), and those with high levels of depression (per point increase 1.13, 95% CI 1.11-1.14) and anxiety (per point increase 1.16, 95% CI 1.14-1.18). Lower educational level, older age, unemployment, smoking and concern about contracting COVID-19 were also associated with healthcare avoidance.

Release date: 23 November 2021
Source: EurekAlert 

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Significant increase in depression seen among children during first lockdown

Significant increase in depression seen among children during first lockdown - افزایش قابل توجه افسردگی در کودکان به دنبال قرنطینه

The first lockdown led to a significant increase in symptoms of depression among children, highlighting the unintended consequences of school closures, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Government implemented a national ‘lockdown’ involving school closures and social distancing. There has been widespread concern that these measures would negatively impact child and adolescent mental health. To date, however, there is relatively little direct evidence of this.

To test whether changes in emotional wellbeing, anxiety and depression symptoms occurred during lockdown since their initial assessment, a team at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, examined data from mental health assessments on 168 children (aged 8-12 years) before and during the UK lockdown. These assessments included self-reports, caregiver-reports, and teacher-reports.

“Put differently, if you randomly selected a child from the sample there is a 70% chance that their depression symptoms were worse during lockdown than before the pandemic.”

The results of their study are published in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Release date: 08 December 2020
Source: University of Cambridge