A scoping review of interventions and barriers in access to Essential health services during COVID19-pandemic

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is an exceptional public health emergency that leads to disruptions of essential health services (EHS). During this pandemic, countries will need to make difficult decisions and choose interventions to balance the demands of responding to COVID-19while simultaneously engaging in actions to maintain essential health service (EHS) delivery to non-COVID-19 patients. The aim of this scoping review was to investigating the necessary interventions and the reported barriers and challenges to access EHS in order to increase coverage of the services of adequate quality during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This scoping review was conducted based on the Arkesy and O’Malley framework. We reviewed peer-reviewed studies in four databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus and Embase) and supplemented it by grey literature search. Inclusion criteria included studies clearly defining any intervention for access to EHS during COVID-19 pandemic, published from December 31, 2019, written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals. Finally, narrative synthesis was undertaken to summarize and report the findings.

After screening the identified records, 38 studies met the inclusion criteria out of the 5583 search results. Among the interventions, use of digital health technologies or electronic health services to provide telehealth services or teleconsultation were the most commonly used interventions inmaintaining EHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also indicated that various barriers affected the people's access to EHS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries have used various interventions to continue providing EHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected interventions with considering their cost-effectiveness can be used to prepare for and effectively respond to crises such as similar infectious disease outbreaks, emerging diseases and natural hazards in various settings in the future. Effective primary health care could accelerate implementing interventions in access to EHS.

Author(s): Leila Doshmangir

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