Impact of covid-19 on primary care contacts with children and young people aged 0-24 years in England; longitudinal trends study 2015-2020
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background: The NHS response to covid-19 altered provision and access to primary care.
Aim: To examine the impact of covid-19 on general practitioner (GP) contacts with children and young people in England.
Design and Setting: Longitudinal trends analysis using electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum database.
Methods: We included all children and young people younger than 25 years registered with a GP. We compared the number of total, remote and face-to-face contacts during the first UK lockdown (March to June 2020) with the mean contacts for comparable weeks from 2015 to 2019.
Results: We examined 47 607 765 GP contacts with 4 307 120 million children and young people. GP contacts fell 41% during the first lockdown compared with previous years. Children aged 1-14 had greater falls in total contacts (>50%) compared with infants and 15-24s. Face-to-face contacts fell by 88% with the greatest falls occurring among children aged 1-14 (> 90%). Remote contacts more than doubled, increasing most in infants (over 2.5 fold). Total contacts for respiratory illnesses fell by 74% whereas contacts for common non-transmissible conditions shifted largely to remote, mitigating the total fall (31%).
Conclusion: During the covid-19 pandemic, children and young people’s contact with GPs fell, particularly for face-to-face assessment. This may be explained by a lower incidence of respiratory illnesses due to fewer social contacts and changing health seeking behaviour. The large shift to remote contacts mitigated total falls in contacts for some age groups and for common non-transmissible conditions.
Aim: To examine the impact of covid-19 on general practitioner (GP) contacts with children and young people in England.
Design and Setting: Longitudinal trends analysis using electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum database.
Methods: We included all children and young people younger than 25 years registered with a GP. We compared the number of total, remote and face-to-face contacts during the first UK lockdown (March to June 2020) with the mean contacts for comparable weeks from 2015 to 2019.
Results: We examined 47 607 765 GP contacts with 4 307 120 million children and young people. GP contacts fell 41% during the first lockdown compared with previous years. Children aged 1-14 had greater falls in total contacts (>50%) compared with infants and 15-24s. Face-to-face contacts fell by 88% with the greatest falls occurring among children aged 1-14 (> 90%). Remote contacts more than doubled, increasing most in infants (over 2.5 fold). Total contacts for respiratory illnesses fell by 74% whereas contacts for common non-transmissible conditions shifted largely to remote, mitigating the total fall (31%).
Conclusion: During the covid-19 pandemic, children and young people’s contact with GPs fell, particularly for face-to-face assessment. This may be explained by a lower incidence of respiratory illnesses due to fewer social contacts and changing health seeking behaviour. The large shift to remote contacts mitigated total falls in contacts for some age groups and for common non-transmissible conditions.
Date Issued
2022-07-01
Date Acceptance
2022-03-22
Citation
British Journal of General Practice, 2022, 72 (720), pp.e464-e471
ISSN
0960-1643
Publisher
Royal College of General Practitioners
Start Page
e464
End Page
e471
Journal / Book Title
British Journal of General Practice
Volume
72
Issue
720
Copyright Statement
© The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is Open Access: CC BY 4.0 licence (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
10.3399/BJGP.2021.0643
Subjects
Public Health
1117 Public Health and Health Services
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-06-30