Changes in home visit utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicenter cross-sectional web-based survey

Abstract

Objective: Home care is one of the essential community health care services; thus, identifying changes of home care utilization before and during the COVID-19 pandemic would be useful for researchers and policymaker to reconsider the home care system, the support needed for home care staff, and the collaborative system with hospitals in the COVID-19 era. We conducted a multicenter cross-sectional web-based anonymous survey of the directors of home visit facilities in Japan in August 2021. Results: A total of 33 participants from 37 facilities responded to the survey. The number of patients dying at home and newly requested home visits increased during the COVID-19 pandemic (74.2%, 71.0%). One possible reason was the restricted visitation of inpatient facilities (93.5%). The underlying disease that the largest number of participants perceived as having increased compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic was cancer (51.6%). There were no significant differences in being in a rural area or the number of doctors in perceived changes in home visit utilization. Our study indicated that the director of home visit facilities thought the number of patients dying at home and newly requested home visits had increased compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic.