Patients with CKD reported the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected their mental health and quality of health care, according to a poster presented at the National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meetings.

Some Experts did a research look at the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and the quality of healthcare in patients with diabetes.

They created an survey of 92 items for patients to answer including COVID-19 diagnosis, general health, vaccines, exposures to COVID-19, access to health care, mental well-being, diet and lifestyle. Additionally, the survey asked patients to answer the following question: Please tell us how much you think COVID-19 impacted the quality of health care you receive now compared to before COVID-19.

They have also emailed the survey to adults who had visited Joslin during the 24 months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using the Patient Health Questionnaire-4, researchers evaluated anxiety and depression symptoms reported in the survey responses.

A total of 1,189 patients completed the survey by Nov. 1, 2021. Overall, 50.8% of respondents were women. Mean patient age was 54.2 years old. In addition, 89.2% of patients were white, 106 reported a previous COVID-19 infection, 94% had diabetes, 36% had hypertension and 8% had CKD.

Surveys revealed half of patients with CKD reported the pandemic made their quality of health care “worse or a lot worse.” However, 81% of the patients with CKD reported that their doctors were available to meet all their health care needs.

Among the overall cohort, 48% reported the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health (21% screened positive for anxiety; 11% screened positive for depression). Analyses showed 15% of patients with depression and 10.6% of those with anxiety reported COVID-19 negatively impacted the quality of their health care.

Overall, patients with CKD in this study reported that the pandemic negatively affected their mental health and quality of health care. Researchers concluded that patients with anxiety and depression are more likely to report that quality of health care during the pandemic is worse than those without anxiety and depression.