The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life of adults visiting emergency departments and primary care settings in Alberta.

OBJECTIVES

To examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life (HRQL) of adults visiting emergency departments (ED) and primary care (PC) settings in Alberta, Canada, and explore whether this impact varies across demographic subgroups.

METHODS

Data from two repeated cross-sectional surveys that measured HRQL using EQ-5D-5L were used; "pre-COVID" Sept 2019-Feb 2020 (ED, N=5927; PC, N=317), "Wave-1" Mar 2020-Aug 2020 (ED, N=4781; PC, N=375), and "Wave-2" Sept 2020-Jan 2021 (ED, N=4443; PC, N=327).

RESULTS

In the ED sample, there were decrements in mild-extreme problems of 3.7% in mobility and 4.1% in usual activities from pre-COVID to wave 2. There were very minor changes in mild-extreme problems in self-care (decrement=1.3%), pain/discomfort (decrement=2.6%), and anxiety/depression (decrement=0.9%). In the PC sample, there were increases of 4.8% in mild-extreme pain/discomfort and 10.7% in anxiety/depression from pre-COVID to wave 2. Despite these changes, HRQL of both samples pre-COVID and during waves 1 and 2 was worse than that of the general Alberta population. There were no significant variations in the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on HRQL across age, sex, and income subgroups in the ED survey; however, such variations were observed in the PC survey whereby younger adults, females, and those with high income had the largest HRQL deteriorations.

CONCLUSION

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on HRQL was minimal in adults seeking ED care, but more pronounced in those seen in PC, especially in terms of mental health. Policies around COVID-19 should take into account the needs of certain groups of the population, especially women and young people.