Aim:To describe long-term care (LTC) use in Finland and Sweden in 2020, by reporting residential entry and exit patterns including hospital admissions and mortality, compared with the 2018–2019 period and community-living individuals.Methods:From national registers in Finland and Sweden, all individuals 70+ were included. Using the Finnish and Swedish study populations in January 2018 as the standard population, we reported changes in sex- and age-standardized monthly rates of entry into and exit from LTC facilities, mortality and hospital admission among LTC residents and community-living individuals in 2020.Results:Around 850,000 Finns and 1.4 million Swedes 70+ were included. LTC use decreased in both countries from 2018 to 2020. In the first wave (March/April 2020), Finland experienced a decrease in LTC entry rates and an increase in LTC exit rates, both more marked than Sweden. This was largely due to short-term movements. Mortality rates peaked in April and December 2020 for LTC residents in Finland, while mortality peaked for both community-living individuals and LTC residents in Sweden. A decrease in hospital admissions from LTC facilities occurred in April 2020 and was less marked in Finland versus Sweden.Conclusions:During the first wave of the pandemic mortality was consistently higher in Sweden. We also found a larger decrease in LTC use and, among LTC residents, a smaller decrease in hospital admissions in Finland than in Sweden. This study calls for assessing the health consequences of the differences observed between these two Scandinavian countries as part of the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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芬兰和瑞典 COVID-19 期间的长期护理使用、住院和死亡率：2020 年全国登记研究

目的：通过报告住宅出入模式（包括入院率和死亡率），与 2018-2019 年期间和社区生活个人进行比较，描述 2020 年芬兰和瑞典的长期护理 (LTC) 使用情况。方法：来自国家登记册在芬兰和瑞典，所有 70 岁以上的人都包括在内。我们使用 2018 年 1 月芬兰和瑞典的研究人群作为标准人群，报告了 2020 年长期护理中心居民和社区生活个人的性别和年龄标准化每月进出长期护理中心设施的比率、死亡率和入院率的变化结果：大约 85 万芬兰人和 140 万 70 岁以上的瑞典人被纳入其中。从 2018 年到 2020 年，这两个国家的 LTC 使用率均有所下降。在第一波浪潮（2020 年 3 月/4 月）中，芬兰的 LTC 进入率下降，而 LTC 退出率上升，两者均比瑞典更为明显。这主要是由于短期走势造成的。芬兰 LTC 居民的死亡率在 2020 年 4 月和 12 月达到峰值，而瑞典社区居民和 LTC 居民的死亡率均达到峰值。2020 年 4 月，LTC 机构的入院人数出现下降，与瑞典相比，芬兰的下降幅度较小。结论：在第一波大流行期间，瑞典的死亡率一直较高。我们还发现，芬兰的 LTC 使用量下降幅度更大，而且在 LTC 居民中，住院人数下降幅度较小。本研究呼吁评估这两个斯堪的纳维亚国家之间观察到的差异对健康的影响，作为从 COVID-19 大流行中汲取的教训的一部分。