Cargando…
The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits
BACKGROUND: COVID-19 outbreak lead to nationwide lockdown in Finland on the March 16th, 2020. Previous data regarding to the patient load in the emergency departments during pandemics is scarce. Our aim is to describe the effect of national lockdown and social distancing on the number and reasons fo...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716110/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33276799 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13049-020-00810-0 |
_version_ | 1783619107074080768 |
---|---|
author | Kuitunen, Ilari Ponkilainen, Ville T. Launonen, Antti P. Reito, Aleksi Hevonkorpi, Teemu P. Paloneva, Juha Mattila, Ville M. |
author_facet | Kuitunen, Ilari Ponkilainen, Ville T. Launonen, Antti P. Reito, Aleksi Hevonkorpi, Teemu P. Paloneva, Juha Mattila, Ville M. |
author_sort | Kuitunen, Ilari |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: COVID-19 outbreak lead to nationwide lockdown in Finland on the March 16th, 2020. Previous data regarding to the patient load in the emergency departments during pandemics is scarce. Our aim is to describe the effect of national lockdown and social distancing on the number and reasons for emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions in three large volume hospitals prior to and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in Finland. METHODS: Data for this register-based retrospective cohort study were collected from three large ED’s in Finland, covering 1/6 of the Finnish population. All patients visiting ED’s six weeks before and six weeks after the lockdown were included. Pediatric and gynecological patients were excluded. Numbers and reasons for ED visits and inpatient admissions were collected. Corresponding time period in 2019 was used as reference. RESULTS: A total of 40,653 ED visits and 12,226 inpatient admissions were analyzed. The total number of ED visits decreased 16% after the lockdown, whereas the number of inpatient admissions decreased 15% (p < 0.001). This change in inpatient admissions was similar in all participating hospitals. Visits due to back or limb pain decreased 31% and infectious diseases 28%. The visit rate and inpatient admissions due to acute myocardial infarction and strokes remained stable throughout the study period. Interestingly, the rate of inpatient admissions due to psychiatric diagnoses remained unchanged, although the ED visit rate decreased by 19%. The number of ED visits (n = 282) and inpatient admissions (n = 55) due to COVID-19 remained low in the participating hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in ED visits and inpatient admissions prior to and during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak were unpredictable, and our results may help hospitals and especially ED’s focus their resources better. Surprisingly, there was a major decrease in the rate of ED visits due to back or limb pain and not so surprisingly in infectious diseases. Rates of acute myocardial infarctions and cerebral strokes remained stable. In summary, stabile resources for the treatment of patients with severe diseases will be needed in hospitals and ED’s. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7716110 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77161102020-12-04 The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits Kuitunen, Ilari Ponkilainen, Ville T. Launonen, Antti P. Reito, Aleksi Hevonkorpi, Teemu P. Paloneva, Juha Mattila, Ville M. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med Original Research BACKGROUND: COVID-19 outbreak lead to nationwide lockdown in Finland on the March 16th, 2020. Previous data regarding to the patient load in the emergency departments during pandemics is scarce. Our aim is to describe the effect of national lockdown and social distancing on the number and reasons for emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions in three large volume hospitals prior to and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in Finland. METHODS: Data for this register-based retrospective cohort study were collected from three large ED’s in Finland, covering 1/6 of the Finnish population. All patients visiting ED’s six weeks before and six weeks after the lockdown were included. Pediatric and gynecological patients were excluded. Numbers and reasons for ED visits and inpatient admissions were collected. Corresponding time period in 2019 was used as reference. RESULTS: A total of 40,653 ED visits and 12,226 inpatient admissions were analyzed. The total number of ED visits decreased 16% after the lockdown, whereas the number of inpatient admissions decreased 15% (p < 0.001). This change in inpatient admissions was similar in all participating hospitals. Visits due to back or limb pain decreased 31% and infectious diseases 28%. The visit rate and inpatient admissions due to acute myocardial infarction and strokes remained stable throughout the study period. Interestingly, the rate of inpatient admissions due to psychiatric diagnoses remained unchanged, although the ED visit rate decreased by 19%. The number of ED visits (n = 282) and inpatient admissions (n = 55) due to COVID-19 remained low in the participating hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in ED visits and inpatient admissions prior to and during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak were unpredictable, and our results may help hospitals and especially ED’s focus their resources better. Surprisingly, there was a major decrease in the rate of ED visits due to back or limb pain and not so surprisingly in infectious diseases. Rates of acute myocardial infarctions and cerebral strokes remained stable. In summary, stabile resources for the treatment of patients with severe diseases will be needed in hospitals and ED’s. BioMed Central 2020-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7716110/ /pubmed/33276799 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13049-020-00810-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Kuitunen, Ilari Ponkilainen, Ville T. Launonen, Antti P. Reito, Aleksi Hevonkorpi, Teemu P. Paloneva, Juha Mattila, Ville M. The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title | The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title_full | The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title_fullStr | The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title_full_unstemmed | The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title_short | The effect of national lockdown due to COVID-19 on emergency department visits |
title_sort | effect of national lockdown due to covid-19 on emergency department visits |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716110/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33276799 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13049-020-00810-0 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT kuitunenilari theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT ponkilainenvillet theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT launonenanttip theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT reitoaleksi theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT hevonkorpiteemup theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT palonevajuha theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT mattilavillem theeffectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT kuitunenilari effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT ponkilainenvillet effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT launonenanttip effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT reitoaleksi effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT hevonkorpiteemup effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT palonevajuha effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits AT mattilavillem effectofnationallockdownduetocovid19onemergencydepartmentvisits |