Effects of the first quarantine in health care services on the Portuguese population

Cavaleiro, Alexandre; Marouvo, Joel; Saraiva, Marina; Brito, António; Castro, Maria

BACKGROUND: With the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of information about this new virus, and its high transmissibility in humans, quarantine was declared to avoid spread. During early times of confinement, several health services closed or limited the patients' access. This study aims to analyze the impact of the first quarantine in health care services on the Portuguese population. METHODS: An online survey, approved by the IPC ethics committee, inquired about the health care services people attended before and during the quarantine period. 536 Portuguese with mean age 42.2 years (14.8) full-field the survey. The responses were gathered from the 18(th) of March till the 30(th) of April 2020. Differences between paired samples were established using the Wilcoxon test (P-value < 0.05), due to an abnormal sample distribution (t = 0.0515, P < 0.0001). RESULTS: The table shows the number of appointments that people attended before and after the quarantine and the statistics analysis (P) between the two moments. CONCLUSIONS: There was a reduction in the number of appointments or treatments among all health care services. The total number of appointments decreased from 118 to 7 (P < 0.001).