The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Patient Attendance in Hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria for the Period of 2020 – 2021.

Background: Outpatient clinics have always been part of services provided in Hospital settings. The novel coronavirus disease had affected service provision in the various health facilities in the Rivers State during the period of the pandemic. The health system was affected during this period under review. Aim: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on outpatient attendance in hospitals in Rivers State. Methodology: The study is a retrospective cross-sectional study conducted on secondary data collected from the District Health Information System 2 platform of the Health Management Information System from 1st January, 2018 to 31st December, 2022. The data from 558 health facilities that offer outpatient services in the State, were collected, analysed and represented as frequencies, percentages and charts. Results: A total of 12,392,423 patients attended the health facilities in Rivers State over the 5 years under review with 2,615,326 (21.1%) of them attending the outpatient clinic with more female attendance at 59.9%. The lowest Hospital attendance was 25.4% in 2020 and 26.4% in 2021 compared to previous years of 2018 (31.8%) – 2019 (32.4%) and 2022 (33.5%). Conclusion: Various individual, facility, and policy-level factors affected the utilization of services during the pandemic. There is a need to augment general outpatient services in the Rivers State by removing barriers to access, especially for the vulnerable population.