Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jun 5:5:1564007.
doi: 10.3389/frhs.2025.1564007. eCollection 2025.

Total hip arthroplasty, associated rehabilitation care and the COVID-19 pandemic in France

Carine Milcent  1   2 , Pierre-Emmanuel Couralet  3 , Saad Zbiri  4   5 , Achille Tchalla  6
Affiliations

Total hip arthroplasty, associated rehabilitation care and the COVID-19 pandemic in France

Carine Milcent et al. Front Health Serv. .

Abstract

This study investigates the Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) activity and the associated rehabilitation care in France over the period 2013-2022, with particular attention to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, scheduled THA activity was 17% lower than predicted based on the 2013-2019 trend (-19,000 THAs). In 2022, this activity was close to the pre-2019 trend, but there has been no catch-up of scheduled THAs that did not occur in 2020 and 2021. There is no obvious explanation for this absence of catch-up. In addition, in 2020, THA activity for recent trauma was only 3.1% lower than predicted based on the 2013-2019 trend. Activity in 2022 shows a return to the pre-2019 trend, without any catch-up effect, as would be expected in such a case. Finally, the proportion of scheduled THAs followed by an associated rehabilitation stay declined sharply in 2020 (-4 percentage points compared to 2019) whereas the downward trend in this proportion had previously been much slower (-10 percentage points from 2013 to 2019). These results underscore the major effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on surgical activity, though further investigation is needed to fully understand the long-term effects on patients' health and life expectancy.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; access to healthcare; health policy; public health; rehabilitation care; total hip arthroplasty.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Evolution of the total number of scheduled THAs in France, 2013–2022. Source: PMSI data, 2013–2022, France (all). The x-axis represents the year, the y-axis represents the total number of scheduled THAs. The linear prediction represents the yearly trend of scheduled THAs including 95% confidence interval (CI) for the reference trend (years 2013–2019).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Evolution of the number of scheduled THAs per hospital in France, 2013–2022. Source: PMSI data, 2013–2022, France (all). The x-axis represents the year, the y-axis represents the mean of scheduled THAs per hospital including 95% confidence interval (CI).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Evolution of the total number of unscheduled THAs in France, 2013–2022. Source: PMSI data, 2013–2022, France (all). The x-axis represents the year, the y-axis represents the total number of unscheduled THAs. The linear prediction represents the yearly trend of unscheduled THAs including 95% confidence interval (CI) for the reference trend (years 2013–2019).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Evolution of the number of unscheduled THAs per hospital in France, 2013–2022. Source: PMSI data, 2013–2022, France (all). The x-axis represents the year, the y-axis represents the mean of unscheduled THAs per hospital including 95% confidence interval (CI).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Proportion of scheduled THAs followed by a rehabilitation stay in France, by type of hospital, 2013–2022. Source: PMSI data, 2013–2022, France (mainland). The x-axis represents the year, the y-axis represents the percent of scheduled THAs followed by rehabilitation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Cash R, Patel V. Has COVID-19 subverted global health? Lancet. (2020) 395(10238):1687–8. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31089-8 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. COVID-19 Map. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University & Medicine; (2023). Available at: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html (Accessed on April 14, 2025).
    1. Woolf SH, Chapman DA, Sabo RT, Weinberger DM, Hill L. Excess deaths from COVID-19 and other causes, march-April 2020. JAMA. ( 2020) 324(5):510–3. 10.1001/jama.2020.11787 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. FIU Digital Commons. Security Research Hub Reports. World Health Statistics; (2021). Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/srhreports/health/health/29/ (accessed on April 14, 2025).
    1. Hale T, Angrist N, Goldszmidt R, Kira B, Petherick A, Phillips T, et al. A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 government response tracker). Nat Hum Behav. (2021) 5(4):529–38. 10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8 - DOI - PubMed