Impactos da pandemia de COVID-19 sobre a assistência à saúde referidos por cidadãos brasileiros: um estudo transversal (2020-2021)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted patient’s access to health services, mainly due to the high demand for care and hospitalization in to the clinical picture associated with this disease. To highlight the assistance demands most affected by the pandemic in Brazil. Exploratory, descriptive, analytical study, data were collected through an electronic form (covid19impactsurvey.org) between april 2020 and december 2021. After pre-processing (data cleaning), the sample consisted of n = 41421 Brazilian citizens of all regions, of both sexes, age ≥ 18 years, respondents by spontaneous demand. Data analysis (absolute frequency [± Pearson-Poisson 95% confidence interval]) was performed in the R statistical computer program (www.r-project.org). This work was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of CESUPA (CAAE: 32384620.0.0000.5169). In the period evaluated, there was a prevalence of no damage reported by citizens to health care (n = 28986). Respondents who reported damage referred to difficulties, mainly, in accessing medical appointments (n = 1295). In addition, access to drug dispensing (n = 1295) and elective surgery (n = 1247) were impaired in the same proportion. In contrast, access to hemodialysis (n = 13) was less impaired than access to diabetes control (n = 258), cancer treatment (n = 200), cancer screening (n = 181), emergency surgery (n = 133), ambulance (n = 103) and psychiatric care (n = 74). In addition, the Southeast region preceded the other regions in relation to all variables, as it had the highest percentage of diseases in all health services in this study, while the Northeast, North and Midwest regions alternated in relation to the lowest losses. Diseases were dominated in 2021, mainly in medical consultations (n = 1835) and drug dispensing (n = 730) in relation to 2020, while the other services evaluated were affected in the same proportion. There was also a lower impact on the elderly (n = 942) in relation to young adults (n = 4776) and greater in females (n = 4498) in relation to males (n = 1201) and others (n = 19) in access to health care. It can be concluded the prevalence of no damage reported by citizens to health care during the evaluated period. However, several health services also proved to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021, given the disproportionate demand for medical care for patients infected with the coronavirus, as well as the protective measures installed (social isolation, quarantines…) throughout the country during the pandemic.