Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Department of Chinese Medicine, Taipei City Hospital Renai Branch, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
BMC Complement Med Ther. 2021 Feb 19;21(1):70. doi: 10.1186/s12906-021-03245-x.
Large-scale epidemics have changed people's medical behavior, and patients tend to delay non-urgent medical needs. However, the impact of the pandemic on the use of complementary and alternative medicine remains unknown.
This retrospective study aimed to analyze the changes in the number of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) patients and examine the epidemic prevention policy during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the number of TCM patients in Taipei City Hospital from January 2017 to May 2020. We tallied the numbers of patients in each month and compared them with those in the same months last year. We calculated the percentage difference in the number of patients to reveal the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on TCM utilization. We used the Mann-Whitney U test to examine whether there was a significant difference in the number of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We included a total of 1,935,827 TCM visits of patients from January 2017 to May 2020 in this study. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of patients decreased significantly, except in February 2020. The number of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic had fallen by more than 15% compared with those in the same months last year. March and April had the greatest number of patient losses, with falls of 32.8 and 40% respectively. TCM patients declined significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and mobile medicine provided to rural areas fell considerably. Among all the TCM specialties, pediatrics and traumatology, as well as infertility treatment, witnessed the most significant decline in the number of patients. However, the number of cancer patients has reportedly increased.
The COVID-19 pandemic decreased the utilization rate of TCM, especially for mobile healthcare in rural areas. We suggest that the government pay attention to the medical disparity between urban and rural areas, which are affected by the pandemic, as well as allocate adequate resources in areas deprived of medical care.
大规模的疫情改变了人们的就医行为，患者倾向于延迟非紧急医疗需求。然而，大流行对补充和替代医学的使用的影响尚不清楚。
本回顾性研究旨在分析中医药患者数量的变化，并研究 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行期间的防疫政策。我们分析了台北市立医院 2017 年 1 月至 2020 年 5 月的中医药患者数量。我们统计了每个月的患者人数，并将其与去年同期的人数进行了比较。我们计算了患者人数的百分比差异，以揭示 COVID-19 大流行对中医药利用的影响。我们使用 Mann-Whitney U 检验来检验 COVID-19 大流行期间患者人数是否存在显著差异。
我们纳入了本研究共 1935827 例 2017 年 1 月至 2020 年 5 月的中医药就诊患者。在 COVID-19 大流行期间，除 2020 年 2 月外，患者数量显著下降。与去年同期相比，COVID-19 大流行期间的患者数量下降了 15%以上。3 月和 4 月的患者流失最多，分别下降了 32.8%和 40%。COVID-19 大流行期间中医药患者显著减少，农村地区移动医疗服务大幅减少。在所有中医药专科中，儿科和创伤科以及不孕治疗科的患者数量下降最为显著。然而，癌症患者的数量据报道有所增加。
COVID-19 大流行降低了中医药的使用率，尤其是农村地区的移动医疗服务。我们建议政府关注城乡医疗差距，这受到疫情的影响，并在缺乏医疗的地区分配足够的资源。
