Pre-travel medical consultation patterns among older adults before, during, and after Taiwan's COVID-19 border quarantine period: A repeated cross-sectional study at a medical center.
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background/purpose: Older adults encounter increased health risks during international travel due to higher burden of comorbidities. The COVID-19 pandemic further imposed additional challenges on pre-travel risk assessment and preventive care. This study aimed to characterize elderly travelers attending a travel medicine clinic and to examine age-related differences in travel patterns and pre-travel healthcare needs across the COVID-19 pandemic era.
Methods: A retrospective observational study of individuals attending a travel medicine clinic in northern Taiwan was conducted between 2015 and 2024. A total of 50,661 travelers were included and categorized into two age groups: <60 years (n = 45,968) and ≥60 years (n = 4693). De-identified data on demographics, travel destinations, travel purposes, prescribed vaccines and prophylactic medications were obtained from administrative visit records and the National Taiwan University Hospital Integrated Medical Database(NTUH-iMD).
Results: Travelers younger than 60 years accounted for most of the clinic attendees (86.0-95.4% annually). Elderly travelers most frequently visited Africa (20.3%) and Central and South America (17.5%), whereas younger travelers predominantly traveled to the United States of America (USA) (40.3%) and Southeast Asia (9.0%). Group package tours (42.3%) and visiting friends and relatives (20.0%) were common among elderly travelers, while education (49.6%) and business travel (19.8%) predominated in the younger group. Yellow fever immunization was most prevalent among elderly travelers (25.7%), whereas hepatitis A vaccination predominated in the younger cohort (15.0%).
Conclusion: Substantial age-related differences were observed in travel destinations, purposes, and preventive interventions. These findings underscore the importance of age-specific pre-travel consultations.
期刊介绍：
Journal of the Formosan Medical Association (JFMA), published continuously since 1902, is an open access international general medical journal of the Formosan Medical Association based in Taipei, Taiwan. It is indexed in Current Contents/ Clinical Medicine, Medline, ciSearch, CAB Abstracts, Embase, SIIC Data Bases, Research Alert, BIOSIS, Biological Abstracts, Scopus and ScienceDirect.
As a general medical journal, research related to clinical practice and research in all fields of medicine and related disciplines are considered for publication. Article types considered include perspectives, reviews, original papers, case reports, brief communications, correspondence and letters to the editor.
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