Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 affected the entire healthcare system in Poland, causing medical personnel to be relocated to other duties and limiting patients’ contacts with healthcare professionals. A large part of the planned diagnostics and treatment was delayed due to lack of equipment and personnel. Against this background, we analysed the implementation of the publicly funded prenatal screening programme (PSP) in Poland compared to the previous year. This is a cross-sectional study. We used nationwide datasets on the implementation of the prenatal testing programme over the period 2019–2020, datasets from the Statistics Poland on birth and the data on the development of the COVID-19 epidemic in Poland. In the year 2020, we observed a 12.41% decrease in woman enrolled to the programme compared to 2019. However, the decrease concerned only women under 35 years of age. With respect to the number of deliveries in the calendar year, the number of patients enrolled in the programme decreased by 3% (31% vs. 34%, p < 0.001). We also observed an increase in estriol measurements per the number of patients included in the programme, and a reduction in the number of PAPP-A tests in the first trimester, which proves an increased share of the triple test in the prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal aberrations. With respect to the number of deliveries, the number of amniocentesis procedures performed under PSP decreased by 0.19% (1.8% vs. 1.99%, p < 0.0001). In 2020, compared to the previous year, the number of patients included in the prenatal testing programme in Poland decreased. In terms of the number of births in Poland, the number of integrated screening tests also decreased, at the expense of increasing the percentage of triple tests. There were also significant reductions in the number of invasive diagnostic tests.
Highlights
In 2020, the world was engulfed in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has since exerted a huge impact on all branches of medicine
In 2020, 110,844 pregnant women were enrolled in the Prenatal Screening Programme (PSP)
The ratio of patients enrolled in the programme changed in favour of women over 35 years of age, who accounted for 36.8% of patients participating in the programme in 2019; while in 2020, they accounted for 52%, which is a statistically significant change (p < 0.001) (Table 1)
Summary
In 2020, the world was engulfed in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has since exerted a huge impact on all branches of medicine. The reasons behind it were the relocation of resources and healthcare workers (HCWs) within the public healthcare system, a change in the structure of the system by converting many departments to centres exclusively treating patients with SARS-CoV2 infections, the suspension of some scheduled treatments and an increase in HCW absenteeism due to disease and quarantine [1]. In order to minimise the risk of patients becoming infected during transport or as a result of contact with health care professionals, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (ACOG) recommended organizing some of the visits in the form of online doctor consultations [2]
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