RESUMEN
Introduction: We aimed to investigate the actual situation of infection preventive behaviors among children, and to investigate changes in parent-child physical contact during the COVID-19 pandemic.Method: We conducted an anonymous questionnaire survey among parents whose children attended the Certified Public Childcare Center in Toyota City between February and March 2021. Descriptive statistics, univariate analysis (Spearman's correlation coefficient, Fisher's exact test), and multivariate analysis were performed.Result: A total of 767 parents responded to the survey. Among them, 78.6% of parents and 76.2% of children always washed their hands when they got home.92.7% of parents and 68.9% of children always wore masks when going out. Breastfeeding and face-to-face contact tended to decrease compared to other behaviors (p < 0.001), but there was most often no change in the frequency of parent-child physical contact.Conclusion: It was difficult for children to take the same infection preventive behaviors as adults. Changes in the frequency of parent-child physical contact were not observed in many parents and children.
RESUMEN
To tackle the rising healthcare expenditure in an ageing society in Japan, home healthcare has been promoted over the past several years. However, there is a dearth of literature on total costs incurring for home healthcare. In this study, we conducted a cross-sectional study among patients, who received home healthcare in the month of May, 2018. Direct healthcare costs and patients' clinical characteristics were collected from medical records and long-term care databases (n = 166). Indirect costs were estimated using a questionnaire survey which obtained information on job absenteeism and care time from the caregiver. A total of 112 patients responded to the survey. The median age was 82 years (interquartile range: 74-88). Total per-person per month home-care costs averaged USD 6,163 with direct costs (USD 2,547) and indirect costs (USD 3,596) accounted for 41.3% and 58.3% of the total costs, respectively. The largest components of direct costs were long-term care costs (48%) and medical costs (47%). Multivariable adjusted model showed that those with heavy healthcare were more likely to incur higher total as well as direct and indirect home healthcare cost (p<.05 for each). Patients aged >75 years (p = .041) were less likely and those who used oxygen at home were more likely to incur direct home healthcare cost (p = .001) than their counterpart. Our study findings show that indirect cost is a major contributor to total home healthcare costs in Japan. Also for patients who need heavy healthcare, both direct and indirect costs are large burden.
