ArticleInternal medicine journal2022
Impact of COVID-19 restrictions on pathology service utilisation.
Article in Internal medicine journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of Electronic Quality Improvement Activities to Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk in People With Chronic Kidney Disease in General Practice: Cluster Randomized Trial With Active Control.JMIR formative research · 2025 · on this mapTrial
- Pandemic Disruptions to Private Pathology Testing Uptake in Australia, 2019-2024.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Pathology Residents/Trainees in North America: A Survey-Based Study.Cureus · 2023Article
- Informing healthcare operations with integrated pathology, clinical, and epidemiology data: Lessons from a single institution in Kenya during COVID-19 waves.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIsolation and social distancing restrictions due to COVID-19 have the potential to impact access to healthcare services.
aimsTo assess the use of pathology services during the COVID-19 pandemic initial restrictions.
methodsRepeated cross-sectional study of pathology tests utilisation during a baseline time period early in 2020 compared with pre-lockdown and lockdown due to COVID-19 in South Australia. The outcome measure was changed in a number of pathology tests compared to baseline period, particularly change in the number of troponin tests to determine potential impacts of lockdown on urgent care presentations.
resultsIn the community setting, the ratio of a number of pathology tests pre-lockdown and post-lockdown versus baseline period decreased from 1.02 to 0.53 respectively. The exception was microbiology molecular tests, where the number of tests was more than three times higher in the lockdown period. The number of troponin tests in emergency departments decreased in the lockdown period compared to the baseline time period; however, there was no evidence of an association between tests result (positive vs negative) and time period (odds ratio (OR) 1.09; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.97-1.22). There was an inverse relationship between age and time period (OR 0.995; 95% CI 0.993-0.997), indicating that fewer troponin tests were conducted in older people during the lockdown compared with the baseline period.
conclusionCOVID-19 restrictions had a significant impact on the use of pathology testing in both urgent and non-urgent care settings. Further studies are needed to investigate the effect on health outcomes as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.