Imperial College London
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ProfessorJenniferQuint

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Professor of Respiratory Epidemiology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 8821j.quint

 
 
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Location

 

.922Sir Michael Uren HubWhite City Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Shah:2021:10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216512,
author = {Shah, S and Quint, J and Nwaru, B and Sheikh, A},
doi = {10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216512},
journal = {Thorax},
pages = {860--866},
title = {Impact of COVID-19 national lockdown on asthma exacerbations: interrupted time-series analysis of English primary care data},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216512},
volume = {76},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Background: The impact of Covid-19 and ensuing national lockdown on asthma exacerbations is unclear.Methods: We conducted an interrupted time-series (lockdown on 23rd March as point of interruption) analysis in asthma cohort identified using a validated algorithm from a national-level primary care database, the Optimum Patient Care Database (OPCRD). We derived asthma exacerbation rates for every week and compared exacerbation rates in the period: January-August 2020 with a pre-Covid-19 period; January-August 2016-2019). Exacerbations were defined as asthma-related hospital attendance/admission (including accident and emergency visit), or an acute course of oral corticosteroids with evidence of respiratory review, as recorded in primary care. We used a generalised least squares modelling approach and stratified the analyses by age, sex, English region, and healthcare setting.Results: From a database of 9,949,487 patients, there were 100,165 asthma patients who experienced at least one exacerbation during 2016-2020. Of 278,996 exacerbation episodes, 49,938 (17.1%) required hospital visit. Comparing pre-lockdown to post-lockdown period, we observed a statistically significant reduction in the level (-0.196 episodes per person-year; p-value<0.001; almost 20 episodes for every 100 asthma patients per year) of exacerbation rates across all patients.  The reductions in level in stratified analyses were: 0.005-0.244 (healthcare setting, only those without hospital attendance/admission were significant), 0.210-0.277 (sex), 0.159-0.367 (age), 0.068-0.371 (region).Conclusions: There has been a significant reduction in attendance to primary care for asthma exacerbations during the pandemic. This reduction was observed in all age groups, both sexes, and across most regions in England.
AU  - Shah,S
AU  - Quint,J
AU  - Nwaru,B
AU  - Sheikh,A
DO  - 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216512
EP  - 866
PY  - 2021///
SN  - 0040-6376
SP  - 860
TI  - Impact of COVID-19 national lockdown on asthma exacerbations: interrupted time-series analysis of English primary care data
T2  - Thorax
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216512
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/85548
VL  - 76
ER  -
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