ArticleBMJ open2021
Physician visits and medication prescriptions for major chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: retrospective cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antibiotic Prescription Trends in Dentistry: A Descriptive Study Using Japan's National Database.Journal of public health dentistry · 2025Article
- The effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the primary health care utilization and cost: an interrupted time series analysis.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2025Article
- Changes in the Utilization of Outpatient and Visiting Dental Care and Per-attendance Care Cost by Age Groups During COVID-19 Pandemic Waves in Japan: A Time-series Analysis From the LIFE Study.Journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Association between the Decrease in Medical Visit Frequency and Chronic Disease Worsening in the Early Stages of COVID-19 - A Longitudinal Study.Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2024Article
- Article
- Statins use amidst the pandemic: prescribing, dispensing, adherence, persistence, and correlation with COVID-19 statistics in nationwide real-world data from Poland.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Despite the pandemic: upward trajectories of medication adherence and persistence in patients with dyslipidemia.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Adherence of denosumab treatment for low bone mineral density in Japanese people living with HIV: a retrospective observational study.Journal of pharmaceutical health care and sciences · 2023Article
- Prescription of renin-angiotensin system inhibitors in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic: interrupted time series study.Hypertension research : official journal of the Japanese Society of Hypertension · 2023Article
- Evaluating the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on hypertension and diabetes care in South Korea: an interrupted time series analysis.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Prescribing of Antiasthmatic Treatments in Portugal: A Nationwide Study.Clinical therapeutics · 2023Article
- Indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of non-COVID-19 infectious diseases: a region-wide, patient-based database study in Japan.Public health · 2023Observational
- Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Overall Physician Visits and Telemedicine Use Among Patients With Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes in Japan.Journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Substitution of telemedicine for clinic visit during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020: Comparison of telemedicine and clinic visit.Journal of diabetes investigation · 2022Observational
- The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Outpatient Visits for All-Cause and Chronic Diseases in Korea: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Cardiovascular considerations during the COVID-19 pandemic: A focused review for practice in Japan.Global health & medicine · 2022Review
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare service use for non-COVID-19 patients in Japan: retrospective cohort study.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Changes in intravenous and oral antimicrobial prescriptions during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: an experience at a tertiary-care center.Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThere have been concerns that patients with chronic conditions may be avoiding in-person physician visits due to fear of COVID-19, leading to lower quality of care. We aimed to investigate changes in physician visits and medication prescriptions for chronic diseases before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at the population level.
designRetrospective cohort study.
settingNationwide claims data in Japan, 2018-2020.
participantsWorking-age population (aged 18-74 years) who visited physicians and received any prescriptions for major chronic diseases (hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia) before the pandemic. OUTCOME MEASURES: The outcomes were the monthly number of physician visits, the monthly proportion of physician visits and the monthly proportion of days covered by prescribed medication (PDC) during the pandemic (April-May 2020, as the first state of emergency over COVID-19 was declared on 7 April, and withdrawn nationally on 25 May).
resultsAmong 10 346 patients who visited physicians for chronic diseases before the pandemic, we found a temporary decline in physician visits (mean number of visits was 1.9 in March vs 1.7 in April; p<0.001) and an increase in the proportion of patients who did not visit any physicians during the pandemic (15% in March vs 24% in April; p<0.001). Physician visits returned to the baseline in May (the mean number of visits: 1.8, and the proportion of patients who did not visit any physicians: 9%). We observed no clinically meaningful difference in PDC between before and during the pandemic (eg, 87% in March vs 87% in April; p=0.45). A temporary decline in physician visits was more salient in seven prefectures with a larger number of COVID-19 cases than in other areas.
conclusionsAlthough the number of physician visits declined right after the COVID-19 outbreak, it returned to the baseline one month later; patients were not skipping medications during the pandemic.
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