Department of Medicine for Integrated Approach to Social Inclusion, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan.
Department of Neuropathology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Geriatr Gerontol Int. 2022 Sep;22(9):803-809. doi: 10.1111/ggi.14461. Epub 2022 Aug 15.
Social restrictions due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forced many long-term care (LTC) service-users to refrain from using services. We aimed to evaluate the degree of change in the use of LTC services.
We retrospectively analyzed data from the publicly distributed nationwide statistics summarizing the monthly number of public LTC insurance users in Japan between April 2018 and March 2021. The degree of decline was quantified as a ratio, where the ratio of a certain month to the reference month was divided by the ratio in the previous year.
The use of LTC services started to decline in March 2020 and reached its largest decline in May 2020. Thereafter, it recovered but insufficiently, even as of late 2020. The degree of decline was particularly large for services provided in facilities for community-dwelling elderly individuals [Ratio to the previous year = 0.717 (95% CI: 0.645-0.796) in short-stay services, and Ratio = 0.876 (95% CI: 0.802-0.957) in outpatient services], but was non-significant in other types of services, including those provided for elderly individuals living in nursing homes.
Community-dwelling elderly individuals who had used outpatient or short-stay services were especially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This underlines the need for further investigation of the medium- or long-term influence of the decline in service usage on the mental and physical health of the LTC service-users and their caregivers. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2022; 22: 803-809.
由于冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，社会限制迫使许多长期护理（LTC）服务使用者停止使用服务。我们旨在评估使用 LTC 服务的变化程度。
我们回顾性分析了 2018 年 4 月至 2021 年 3 月期间在日本公开发布的全国性统计数据，该数据总结了公共 LTC 保险用户的每月人数。下降程度通过比率量化，即将某个月与参考月的比率除以前一年的比率。
LTC 服务的使用从 2020 年 3 月开始下降，并在 2020 年 5 月达到最大降幅。此后，尽管截至 2020 年底，服务有所恢复，但仍不充分。设施中为社区居住的老年人提供的服务下降幅度特别大[与前一年的比率=短期服务的 0.717（95%CI：0.645-0.796），门诊服务的 0.876（95%CI：0.802-0.957）]，但其他类型的服务，包括为养老院居住的老年人提供的服务，下降幅度不显著。
2020 年，使用门诊或短期服务的社区居住的老年人受到 COVID-19 大流行的影响尤其严重。这强调了需要进一步调查服务使用量下降对 LTC 服务使用者及其护理人员的身心健康的中长期影响。老年医学与老年病学国际 2022；22：803-809。
