The effects of home confinement on pediatric fractures during the COVID 19 outbreak

OBJECTIVE: To control the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Chinese government encouraged people to stay at home. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of home confinement on the occurrence of fractures among children. STUDY DESIGN: We retrospectively reviewed children admitted to Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, for traumatic injury from January 24 to March 10, 2020, and the same time period in 2017, 2018 and 2019. At the same time, children with fracture were screened out and the date for the past 4 years was compared in terms of etiology, location of fracture, sex and age to evaluate the effects of home confinement on the epidemiology of pediatric fractures during the COVID-19 outbreak. RESULTS: There were 6066 fractures in5,346 patients in 2017–2019, and 1034 fractures in 862 patients in 2020; the number of patients in all years reached a peak at the age of 2 to 4 years. The patients were slightly younger in 2020 than in 2017–2019 (t = 9.953, 95% CI: 0.846–1.262), and the proportion of boys in 2017–2019 is higher than in 2020 (X(2) = 6.944, P = 0.008). Home confinement and traffic restriction resulted in a reduction in traffic accidents-associated fractures among children (X(2) = 16.399, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Home confinement lead to the significant reduction in the number of pediatric fractures, especially in male children, but the number of patients under 4 years old was still considerable, and the proportion of younger patients even increased. Therefore, the perspective of children should not be relaxed during home isolation.