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Background: During the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, reductions of hospital admissions with a focus on emergencies have been observed for several medical and surgical conditions, while trend data during later stages of the pandemic are scarce. Consequently, this study aims to provide up-to-date hospitalization trends for several conditions including cardiovascular, psychiatry, oncology and surgery cases in both the in- and outpatient setting., Methods and Findings: Using claims data of 86 Helios hospitals in Germany, consecutive cases with an in- or outpatient hospital admission between March 13, 2020 (the begin of the "protection" stage of the German pandemic plan) and December 10, 2020 (end of study period) were analyzed and compared to a corresponding period covering the same weeks in 2019. Cause-specific hospitalizations were defined based on the primary discharge diagnosis according to International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) or German procedure classification codes for cardiovascular, oncology, psychiatry and surgery cases. Cumulative hospitalization deficit was computed as the difference between the expected and observed cumulative admission number for every week in the study period, expressed as a percentage of the cumulative expected number. The expected admission number was defined as the weekly average during the control period. A total of 1,493,915 hospital admissions (723,364 during the study and 770,551 during the control period) were included. At the end of the study period, total cumulative hospitalization deficit was -10% [95% confidence interval -10; -10] for cardiovascular and -9% [-10; -9] for surgical cases, higher than -4% [-4; -3] in psychiatry and 4% [4; 4] in oncology cases. The utilization of inpatient care and subsequent hospitalization deficit was similar in trend with some variation in magnitude between cardiovascular (-12% [-13; -12]), psychiatry (-18% [-19; -17]), oncology (-7% [-8; -7]) and surgery cases (-11% [-11; -11]). Similarly, cardiovascular and surgical outpatient cases had a deficit of -5% [-6; -5] and -3% [-4; -3], respectively. This was in contrast to psychiatry (2% [1; 2]) and oncology cases (21% [20; 21]) that had a surplus in the outpatient sector. While in-hospital mortality, was higher during the Covid-19 pandemic in cardiovascular (3.9 vs. 3.5%, OR 1.10 [95% CI 1.06-1.15], P<0.01) and in oncology cases (4.5 vs. 4.3%, OR 1.06 [95% CI 1.01-1.11], P<0.01), it was similar in surgical (0.9 vs. 0.8%, OR 1.06 [95% CI 1.00-1.13], P = 0.07) and in psychiatry cases (0.4 vs. 0.5%, OR 1.01 [95% CI 0.78-1.31], P<0.95)., Conclusions: There have been varying changes in care pathways and in-hospital mortality in different disciplines during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. Despite all the inherent and well-known limitations of claims data use, this data may be used for health care surveillance as the pandemic continues worldwide. While this study provides an up-to-date analysis of utilization of hospital care in the largest German hospital network, short- and long-term consequences are unknown and deserve further studies., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate (1) motives, motivations and expectations regarding the choice for a specific rehabilitation setting after herniated disc surgery and (2) how rehabilitation-related motivations and expectations are associated with rehabilitation outcome (ability to work, health-related quality of life and satisfaction with rehabilitation) three months after disc surgery., Methods: The longitudinal cohort study refers to 452 disc surgery patients participating in a subsequent rehabilitation. Baseline interviews took part during acute hospital stay (pre-rehabilitation), follow-up interviews three months later (post-rehabilitation). Binary logistic regression and multiple linear regression analyses were applied., Results: (1) Motives, motivations and expectations: Inpatient rehabilitation (IPR) patients stated "less effort/stress" (40.9%), more "relaxation and recreation" (39.1%) and greater "intensity of care and treatment" (37.0%) regarding their setting preference, whereas outpatient rehabilitation (OPR) patients indicated "family reasons" (45.3%), the wish for "staying in familiar environment" (35.9%) as well as "job-related reasons" (11.7%) as most relevant. IPR patients showed significantly higher motivation/expectation scores regarding regeneration (p < .001), health (p < .05), coping (p < .001), retirement/job (p < .01), psychological burden (p < .05) and physical burden (p < .001) compared to OPR patients. (2) Associations with rehabilitation outcome: Besides other factors (e.g. age, gender and educational level) rehabilitation-related motivations/expectations were significantly associated with rehabilitation outcome measures. For example, patients with less motivations/expectations to achieve improvements regarding "physical burden" showed a better health-related quality of life (p < .01) three months after disc surgery. Less motivations/expectations to achieve improvements regarding "psychological burden" was linked to a better mental health status (p < .001) and a greater satisfaction with rehabilitation (OR = .806; p < .05)., Conclusion: Rehabilitation-related motivations and expectations differed substantially between IPR and OPR patients before rehabilitation and were significantly associated with rehabilitation outcome. Taking motivational and expectation-related aspects into account may help to improve allocation procedures for different rehabilitation settings and may improve rehabilitation success.

Objectives: Pain relief has been shown to be the most frequently reported goal by patients undergoing lumbar disc surgery. There is a lack of systematic research investigating the course of postsurgical pain intensity and factors associated with postsurgical pain. This systematic review focuses on pain, the most prevalent symptom of a herniated disc as the primary outcome parameter. The aims of this review were (1) to examine how pain intensity changes over time in patients undergoing surgery for a lumbar herniated disc and (2) to identify socio-demographic, medical, occupational and psychological factors associated with pain intensity., Methods: Selection criteria were developed and search terms defined. The initial literature search was conducted in April 2015 and involved the following databases: Web of Science, Pubmed, PsycInfo and Pubpsych. The course of pain intensity and associated factors were analysed over the short-term (≤ 3 months after surgery), medium-term (> 3 months and < 12 months after surgery) and long-term (≥ 12 months after surgery)., Results: From 371 abstracts, 85 full-text articles were reviewed, of which 21 studies were included. Visual analogue scales indicated that surgery helped the majority of patients experience significantly less pain. Recovery from disc surgery mainly occurred within the short-term period and later changes of pain intensity were minor. Postsurgical back and leg pain was predominantly associated with depression and disability. Preliminary positive evidence was found for somatization and mental well-being., Conclusions: Patients scheduled for lumbar disc surgery should be selected carefully and need to be treated in a multimodal setting including psychological support., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objectives: The aims of this study are to answer the following questions (1) How does the pain intensity of lumbar and cervical disc surgery patients change within a postoperative time frame of 5 years? (2) Which sociodemographic, medical, work-related, and psychological factors are associated with postoperative pain in lumbar and cervical disc surgery patients?, Methods: The baseline survey (T0; n = 534) was conducted 3.6 days (SD 2.48) post-surgery in the form of face-to-face interviews. The follow-up interviews were conducted 3 months (T1; n = 486 patients), 9 months (T2; n = 457), 15 months (T3; n = 438), and 5 years (T4; n = 404) post-surgery. Pain intensity was measured on a numeric rating-scale (NRS 0-100). Estimated changes to and influences on postoperative pain by random effects were accounted by regression models., Results: Average pain decreased continuously over time in patients with lumbar herniated disc (Wald Chi² = 25.97, p<0.001). In patients with cervical herniated disc a reduction of pain was observed, albeit not significant (Chi² = 7.02, p = 0.135). Two predictors were associated with postoperative pain in lumbar and cervical disc surgery patients: the subjective prognosis of gainful employment (p<0.001) and depression (p<0.001)., Conclusion: In the majority of disc surgery patients, a long-term reduction of pain was observed. Cervical surgery patients seemed to benefit less from surgery than the lumbar surgery patients. A negative subjective prognosis of gainful employment and stronger depressive symptoms were associated with postoperative pain. The findings may promote multimodal rehabilitation concepts including psychological and work-related support.

Objective: To examine rehabilitation preferences, participation and determinants for the choice of a certain rehabilitation setting (inpatient vs. outpatient) and setting-specific rehabilitation outcomes., Methods: The longitudinal observational study referred to 534 consecutive disc surgery patients (18-55 years). Face-to-face baseline interviews took place about 3.6 days after disc surgery during acute hospital stay. 486 patients also participated in a follow-up interview via telephone three months later (dropout-rate: 9%). The following instruments were used: depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), pain intensity (numeric analog scale), health-related quality of life (Short Form 36 Health Survey), subjective prognosis of gainful employment (SPE-scale) as well as questions on rehabilitation attendance, return to work, and amount of sick leave days., Results: The vast majority of patients undergoing surgery for a herniated disc attended a post-hospital rehabilitation treatment program (93%). Thereby two-thirds of these patients took part in an inpatient rehabilitation program (67.9%). Physical, psychological, vocational and health-related quality of life characteristics differed widely before as well as after rehabilitation depending on the setting. Inpatient rehabilitees were significantly older, reported more pain, worse physical quality of life, more anxiety and depression and a worse subjective prognosis of gainful employment before rehabilitation. Pre-rehabilitation differences remained significant after rehabilitation. More than half of the outpatient rehabilitees (56%) compared to only one third of the inpatient rehabilitees (33%) returned to work three months after disc surgery (p<.001)., Conclusion: The results suggest a "pre-selection" of patients with better health status in outpatient rehabilitation. Gaining better knowledge about setting-specific selection processes may help optimizing rehabilitation allocation procedures and improve rehabilitation effects such as return to work.