Outpatient Health Service Utilization Among Adults with Diabetes, Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Results of Population-Based Surveys in Germany from 2019 to 2021

Yong Du; Jens Baumert; Stefan Damerow; Alexander Rommel; Hannelore Neuhauser; Christin Heidemann

doi:10.2147/JMDH.S445899

Outpatient Health Service Utilization Among Adults with Diabetes, Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Results of Population-Based Surveys in Germany from 2019 to 2021

J Multidiscip Healthc. 2024 Feb 13:17:675-687. doi: 10.2147/JMDH.S445899. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Yong Du¹, Jens Baumert¹, Stefan Damerow¹, Alexander Rommel¹, Hannelore Neuhauser^{1

2}, Christin Heidemann¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
² German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Purpose: Fear of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and lockdown measures may have an impact on health care utilization particularly for people with chronic diseases. We investigated changes in outpatient utilization behavior in pandemic phases among people with selected chronic diseases in Germany.

Methods: The nationwide population-based telephone surveys German Health Update (GEDA) 2019/2020 (April 2019 to September 2020) and GEDA 2021 (July to December 2021) covered 4 out of 7 pandemic phases from the pre-pandemic to the 4th pandemic wave. Data on hypertension, diabetes and major cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the past 12 months and visiting a general practitioner (GP) or a specialist (excluding dentist) in the past 4 weeks was collected using a standardized questionnaire. Proportions and odds ratios were derived from logistic regression models adjusted for age, sex, education and federal states.

Results: Among 27,967 participants aged ≥16 years, 8,449, 2,497 and 1,136 individuals had hypertension, diabetes and major CVD. Participants with these chronic diseases visited a GP or specialist significantly more often than the overall study population, irrespective of pandemic phases. Compared to the pre-pandemic phase, a significant reduction in specialist-visiting was found in the first pandemic wave among people with hypertension (34.3% vs 24.1%), diabetes (39.5% vs 25.5%) and major CVD (41.9% vs 25.6%). GP-visiting was lower only among people with hypertension (53.0% vs 46.0%). No difference in GP or specialist visiting was found in the 4th pandemic wave compared to the pre-pandemic phase.

Conclusion: The observed decrease particularly in specialist utilization among people with the selected chronic diseases at the beginning of the pandemic was not observed for the second half of 2021 despite the ongoing pandemic. Further studies are required to examine whether the temporary changes in the utilization of ambulatory health care have affected the disease management of people with chronic diseases.

Keywords: Germany; SARS-CoV-2; cardiometabolic diseases; chronic disease; diabetes; health service utilization; outpatients.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a research grant from the German Federal Ministry of Health to develop a diabetes surveillance system in Germany (Grant Numbers: 2522DIA700, 2523DIA002). The GEDA study was funded by the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Ministry of Health, Germany. The Robert Koch Institute is a Federal Institute within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Health Germany.