Department of Health Economics and Health Services Research, Hamburg Center for Health Economics, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Federal Centre of Health Education, Maarweg 149-161, 50825, Köln, Germany.
Public Health. 2021 May;194:36-41. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2021.02.023. Epub 2021 Apr 13.
The COVID-19 pandemic has serious social, economic and health consequences. Particularly in these times, it is important to maintain individual health. Therefore, it is important to take part in routine health checkups. Consequently, our objective was to describe the frequency and to identify the determinants of postponed routine health checkups.
Cross-sectional data from the nationally representative online-survey "COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring in Germany (COSMO)" was used (wave 17; July 2020).
In sum, 974 individuals were included in our analytical sample (average age was 45.9 years, SD: 16.5, 18-74 years). Postponed routine health checkups (yes or no) since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic were assessed.
More than 16% of the individuals reported postponed routine health checkups in the past few months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, individuals aged 30-49 years had postponed health checkups (21%). The probability of postponed health checkups was positively associated with the presence of chronic diseases (odds ratio [OR]: 1.68, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.15-2.47), higher affect regarding COVID-19 (OR: 1.44, 95%-CI: 1.16-1.78), and higher presumed severity of COVID-19 (OR: 1.17, 95%-CI: 1.01-1.35), whereas the outcome measure was not associated with socioeconomic factors. Data showed that a sizeable part (about one of six individuals) of the population reported postponed routine health checkups due to the COVID-19 pandemic between March and July 2020.
Postponed checkups should not be neglected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals at risk for postponed health checkups should be appropriately addressed.
新冠疫情对社会、经济和健康造成了严重影响。在这个特殊时期，保持个人健康尤为重要。因此，定期进行健康检查非常重要。由此，我们的目的是描述健康检查推迟的频率，并确定其决定因素。
我们使用了全国代表性在线调查“德国新冠快照监测（COSMO）”的横断面数据（第 17 波；2020 年 7 月）。
我们共纳入了 974 名分析样本中的个体（平均年龄为 45.9 岁，标准差为 16.5，18-74 岁）。评估了自 2020 年 3 月因新冠疫情而推迟的常规健康检查。
超过 16%的个体报告在过去几个月因新冠疫情而推迟了常规健康检查。特别是 30-49 岁的个体推迟了健康检查（21%）。健康检查推迟的可能性与存在慢性病呈正相关（优势比[OR]：1.68，95%置信区间[CI]：1.15-2.47）、对新冠疫情的更高担忧（OR：1.44，95%CI：1.16-1.78）和更高估计的新冠病毒严重程度（OR：1.17，95%CI：1.01-1.35），而该结果与社会经济因素无关。数据显示，大约六分之一的人群在 2020 年 3 月至 7 月期间因新冠疫情而推迟了常规健康检查。
在新冠疫情期间，不应忽视推迟的检查。应适当关注有推迟健康检查风险的个体。
