Many homebound older adults canceled medically necessary home-based health care services out of fear of getting COVID-19, research finds.

This avoidance caused new or worsening medical conditions for a number of patients, and home-based health care providers reported feeling that they lacked sufficient information and training to advise patients through the process of deciding whether or not to continue care.

“One home health care agency representative said their agency’s patient load decreased by 38% as a result of patients canceling services,” says study first author Jennifer Inloes, a doctor of nursing practice student at the University of Michigan School of Nursing. “It really highlighted the level of fear among patients receiving home-based health care services at the early part of the pandemic.”

Both family members and patients canceled services, and the large number of cancellations surprised Inloes.

“I understood why patients might cancel in-person visits or elective surgeries because there are so many potential points of infection associated with office or hospital-based care,” she says. “I wasn’t prepared to hear about so many patients declining home-based health care services, since home-based health care is a much more controlled interaction with fewer potential points of infection.”

Disease management continues to shift toward a home health care model, but there’s not much literature on how public health emergencies affect continuity of home health care. To learn more, researchers interviewed 27 Medicare-certified home health providers in eight US counties to better understand older adults‘ decision making around home-based care service during COVID-19.

The findings emphasize the large role emotion plays in medical decision-making, and challenge the assumption that given enough accurate educational information, patients make rational decisions in their best interests. Inloes says her research highlights the importance of carefully weighing the well-known benefits of home-based health care services with the potential negative consequences of canceling services.

“For example, home-based health care providers are trained in infection control precautions, so the risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 from a provider coming into the home is fairly small,” she says. “However, a patient experiencing a preventable refusal-related complication that requires emergency department treatment has now inadvertently increased their risk of COVID-19 exposure due to the larger number of providers, patients, and family members in the emergency department vs. the home setting.”

Read the full article about older adults home health during COVID-19 by Laura Bailey at Futurity .