Abstract
This population-based cohort study aimed to describe changes in incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) hospital diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic in The Netherlands compared with the pre-pandemic period. We used Dutch nationwide statistics about hospitalizations to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRR) of hospital diagnoses of CVD during the first and second COVID-19 waves in The Netherlands in 2020 versus the same periods in 2019. Compared with 2019, the incidence rate of a hospital diagnosis of ischemic stroke (IRR 0.87; 95% CI 0.79-0.95), major bleeding (IRR 0.74; 95% CI 0.68-0.82), atrial fibrillation (IRR 0.73; 95% CI 0.65-0.82), myocardial infarction (IRR 0.78; 95% CI 0.72-0.84), and heart failure (IRR 0.74; 95% CI 0.65-0.85) declined during the first wave, but returned to pre-pandemic levels throughout 2020. However, the incidence rate of a hospital diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) increased during both the first and second wave in 2020 compared with 2019 (IRR 1.30; 95% CI 1.15-1.48 and IRR 1.31; 95% CI 1.19-1.44, respectively). In conclusion, we observed substantial declines in incidences of CVD during the COVID-19 pandemic in The Netherlands in 2020, especially during the first wave, with an exception for an increase in incidence of PE. This study contributes to quantifying the collateral damage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 12832 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Qingui Chen is supported by the Chinese Government Scholarship (No. 201906380148) for his PhD study at the Leiden University Medical Center. The Dutch COVID & Thrombosis Coalition is supported by The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw project number 10430012010004) and The Netherlands Thrombosis Foundation (project number 2020_A).
Funding Information:
Results are based on calculations by the authors using non-public microdata made available by Statistics Netherlands. The authors thank Statistics Netherlands for making data from the Dutch Hospital Data registry available. This study was performed on behalf of the Dutch COVID & Thrombosis Coalition. Membership of the Dutch COVID & Thrombosis Coalition is provided in the Supplementary Information.
Funding Information:
FAK reports Grants or contracts from Bayer, BMS, BSCI, MSD, Leo Pharma, Actelion, Pharm-X, The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, the Dutch Thrombosis Association, The Dutch Heart Foundation and the Horizon Europe Program, all unrelated to this work and paid to his institution. MJHAK received funding for research outside this project from Sobi, a speakers fee from Roche, Sobi and BMS, all payments were made to the institute. All other authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Springer Nature Limited.
