Objectives: To quantitatively assess the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on in-person outpatient care utilisation worldwide, as well as across categories of services, types of care and medical specialties.
Design: Rapid review.
Method: A search of MEDLINE and Embase was conducted to identify studies published from 1 January 2020 to 12 February 2021, which quantitatively reported the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the amount of outpatient care services delivered (in-person visits, diagnostic/screening procedures and treatments). There was no restriction on the type of medical care (emergency/primary/specialty care) or target population (adult/paediatric). All articles presenting primary data from studies reporting on outpatient care utilisation were included. Studies describing conditions requiring hospitalisation or limited to telehealth services were excluded.
Results: A total of 517 articles reporting 1011 outpatient care utilisation measures in 49 countries worldwide were eligible for inclusion. Of those, 93% focused on the first semester of 2020 (January to June). The reported results showed an almost universal decline in in-person outpatient care utilisation, with a 56% overall median relative decrease. Heterogeneity across countries was high, with median decreases ranging from 10% to 91%. Diagnostic and screening procedures (-63%), as well as in-person visits (-56%), were more affected than treatments (-36%). Emergency care showed a smaller relative decline (-49%) than primary (-60%) and specialty care (-58%).
Conclusions: The provision of in-person outpatient care services has been strongly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but heterogeneously across countries. The long-term population health consequences of the disruption of outpatient care service delivery remain currently unknown and need to be studied.
Prospero registration number: CRD42021237366.
Keywords: COVID-19; International Health Services; organisation of health services; paediatric A&E and ambulatory care; primary care; public health.
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.