Impact of Covid-19 Induced Lockdown on the OPD Patients of Diabetes, Hypertension, Stroke (cva), Acute Heart Disease, Mental Illness, Epilepsy, Ophthalmic, Dental and Oncology in India- a Cross-Sectional Research Study Impact of Covid-19 on the Number of OPD Patients

Abstract

Piyush Kumar

The First global covid-19 patient was reported from Wuhan city in China (Hubei Province) during December 2019. India’s first suspected patient of SARS-CoV-2 infection was reported on 27th of January 2020, from Kerala state, which had a travel history of Wuhan city in china. This suspected case was tested and reported as the first covid-19 positive case by the (NIV) National Institute of Virology, Pune, on January 30, 2020. The government of India like other global countries responded to this novel disease by enforcing complete nationwide lockdown starting on 25/03/2020 and ending on 31/05/2020. In this cross-sectional research study, I had done assessment of the impact of covid-19 induced lockdown on OPD patients of few non-communicable diseases (NCD). The data for different quantitative variables were collected for 12 months before and after lockdown, observed, analyzed for the years 2019, 2020, 2021. The complete lockdown period of April-May 2020 is compared with the previous 12 months of lockdown (including period of March 2020 which had only last 7 days of complete lockdown) as well as later 12 months. Also, the lockdown months (April-May-2020) were compared to previous (April-May-2019) as well as next (April-May-2021) year same months. Here the researcher would like to emphasize that different months of years may have different numbers of patients due to seasonal and geographical variations in prevalence of diseases. The researcher had included the month of March 2020 in order to show the trends of OPD numbers to closest timeline before the lockdown. The OPD (outpatient Department) services for the patients of significant NCD burden such as Diabetes, Hypertension, Stroke (CVA), Acute Heart Disease, Mental Illness, Epilepsy, Ophthalmic, Dental and oncology were selected for this study-analysis to assess the difference between pre and post intervention (lockdown). The author previous preprints on this research study are mentioned in note and acknowledgement. This research study revealed that COVID-19 induced lockdown period have negative impact on NCD (non-communicable disease) - OPD health services utilization. Non-communicable diseases are the major burden of disease in India as well as at global levels. The researcher had done this study to draw the attention of policy makers and governments to give more attention on emphasis and priority for NCDs care in any situations of emergency like pandemic and natural calamities, lockdowns etc. which usually disrupt routine healthcare. Routine healthcare is very essential and significant in context of chronic diseases, which converted to acute emergency conditions like CVA can be due to lack of care and proper-timely treatments.

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