Trends in missed paediatric preventive primary care visits during the COVID-19 pandemic using routinely collected electronic medical records in Ontario, Canada (2015-2022).

ABSTRACT:

Background

Well child visits (WCV) are fundamental to preventive primary care. We examined trends in WCV attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic and characterised variation by patient and provider characteristics.

Methods

Deidentified electronic medical records from two academic practice-based research networks in Ontario were used to create age-specific cohorts of children under age six attending WCVs from 2015 to 2022. Patients' residential postal codes were linked to neighbourhood-level measures to estimate socioeconomic status. Monthly visit rates were modelled using segmented linear regression with autoregressive residuals. Changes associated with COVID-19 were assessed using level change and trend change of monthly visit rates.

Findings

For the 53 256 included c

SUBMITTER: Bayoumi I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12658507 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature