Wating times for surgery longer than 12 months in the Centre region: evolution and profile of patients before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Autor(a) principal: Quintal, Carlota
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Antunes, Patrícia, Cruz, Adriana
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/cadernosdesaude.2021.10093

Introduction: Waiting times for elective surgery are a priority of health policy in Portugal, as in other countries. The assessment of waiting times usually focuses on the compliance with maximum waiting times guarantees. However, among the cases where waiting maximum times are not met, there waiting times particularly long. In 2019, the Ministry of Health announced its intention of reducing the number of patients waiting for surgery for more than 12 months. Objectives: Our objectives are to analyse the evolution of this number and to compare the profile of patients waiting less and more than 12 months, before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the Centre Region. Materials and methods: Data come from the waiting list for surgery in three moments: 31st May 2019 (50245 observations), 31st December 2019 (50382 observations) and 31st July 2020 (49112 observations). To analyse the association between risk factors and wating time longer than 12 months we use multiple logistic regression. Results: The number of patients waiting more than 12 months increased, both in absolute and relative terms, in 2019 and particularly in 2020. The odds of waiting more than one year are greater for younger patients, for non-ambulatory surgery, normal priority and ophthalmology and for one of the hospitals considered. Those odds are lower for oncology and there is no difference between sexes. Conclusions: The objective of decreasing, already in 2019, the number of patients wating for surgery for more than 12 months seems to have been too ambitious. The pandemic compromised this objective even further.