A study investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on homecare services for individuals with traumatic and non-traumatic Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in Ontario, Canada, was published. The research, a longitudinal retrospective review of health administrative database records from March 2015 to June 2022, found significant alterations in the provision of care services during the pandemic period.
Through an evaluation using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models, the study assessed the monthly homecare utilization of 3381 adults with SCI. The findings indicated that following the onset of the pandemic, individuals with traumatic SCI experienced a reduction in personal and homemaking services, coupled with a surge in nursing visits between April 2020 and March 2022, and again in June 2022. Case management frequency for this group also showed an increase, though therapy services witnessed a decline in May 2020.
Similarly, participants with non-traumatic SCI saw a drop in personal and homemaking services in July 2020, with nursing services escalating from March 2020 to February 2021 and at various intervals throughout 2020. Like their counterparts, this group also experienced sporadic increases in case management but underwent decreases in therapeutic services in April and July 2020, and again in September 2021.
Source: Nature.com