A Comparison on Factor of Health Care Accessibility in Palliative Patient during before and after Covid 19 Outbreak in a Hospital Located in Northeast of Thailand

Abstract

This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate and compare factors affecting access to health services before and after the outbreak of COVID 19 in all palliative care patients, Thabo Hospital, Nongkhai Province. The data were retrieved all palliative care patients from HosXP data based during 2017 to 2022. The outcome of this study was number of accessing to health services. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple poisson regression analysis. Results found that the number of palliative care patient accessed to health service before COVID 19 outbreak was 3,076 times (Mean ± SD: 19.23 ± 13.40) and during COVID 19 outbreak was 1,374, (12.84 ± 8.67). It found that factors affecting access to health services before COVID 19 were males (aIRR = 0.86; 95%CI: 0.80, 0.93), those aged over 60 years-old (aIRR = 1.21; 95% CI: 1.12, 1.31) and those who had Charlson’s comorbidity index score > 3 points (aIRR = 1.57; 95%CI: 1.27, 1.95). During COVID-19 outbreak, it found that factors affecting access to health services were males (aIRR = 1.19; 95%CI: 1.08, 1.34), Hence, in order to have a sign for service provider of prioritizing service, there is a needed of periodizing severity of palliative care patents by age and Charlson’s comorbidity index score during normal and epidemic of emerging disease.