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Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy

Across the world, people have avoided seeking medical attention during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a marked reduction in emergency department (ED) visits. This retrospective cohort study examines in detail how the present pandemic affects ED use by the elderly. The regional database on ED...

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Autores principales: Bardin, Andrea, Buja, Alessandra, Barbiellini Amidei, Claudio, Paganini, Matteo, Favaro, Andrea, Saia, Mario, Baldo, Vincenzo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8658732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34884265
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235563
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author Bardin, Andrea
Buja, Alessandra
Barbiellini Amidei, Claudio
Paganini, Matteo
Favaro, Andrea
Saia, Mario
Baldo, Vincenzo
author_facet Bardin, Andrea
Buja, Alessandra
Barbiellini Amidei, Claudio
Paganini, Matteo
Favaro, Andrea
Saia, Mario
Baldo, Vincenzo
author_sort Bardin, Andrea
collection PubMed
description Across the world, people have avoided seeking medical attention during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a marked reduction in emergency department (ED) visits. This retrospective cohort study examines in detail how the present pandemic affects ED use by the elderly. The regional database on ED visits in Veneto (northeastern Italy) was consulted to extract anonymous data on all ED visits during 2019 and 2020, along with details concerning patients’ characteristics (access mode, triage code, chief complaint, and outcome). A year-on-year comparison was drawn between 2019 and 2020. There was a 25.3% decrease in ED visits in 2020 compared to the previous year. The decrease ranged from −52.4% in March to −18.4% in September when comparing the same months in the two years. This decrease started in late February 2020, with the lowest numbers of visits recorded in March and April 2020 (during the “first wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy), and in the autumn (during the “second wave”). The proportion of visits to the ED by ambulance has increased sharply since March 2020, and patients arrived more frequently with severe conditions (red or yellow triage tags) that often required a hospitalization. The greatest decrease was in fact observed for non-urgent complaints. This decreased concerned a wide range of conditions, including chest pain and abdominal pain. The sharp reduction observed in the present study is unlikely to be attributed entirely to the effect of lockdown measures. Individual psychological and media-induced fear of contagion most likely played a relevant role in leading people to avoid seeking medical attention.
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spelling pubmed-86587322021-12-10 Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy Bardin, Andrea Buja, Alessandra Barbiellini Amidei, Claudio Paganini, Matteo Favaro, Andrea Saia, Mario Baldo, Vincenzo J Clin Med Article Across the world, people have avoided seeking medical attention during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a marked reduction in emergency department (ED) visits. This retrospective cohort study examines in detail how the present pandemic affects ED use by the elderly. The regional database on ED visits in Veneto (northeastern Italy) was consulted to extract anonymous data on all ED visits during 2019 and 2020, along with details concerning patients’ characteristics (access mode, triage code, chief complaint, and outcome). A year-on-year comparison was drawn between 2019 and 2020. There was a 25.3% decrease in ED visits in 2020 compared to the previous year. The decrease ranged from −52.4% in March to −18.4% in September when comparing the same months in the two years. This decrease started in late February 2020, with the lowest numbers of visits recorded in March and April 2020 (during the “first wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy), and in the autumn (during the “second wave”). The proportion of visits to the ED by ambulance has increased sharply since March 2020, and patients arrived more frequently with severe conditions (red or yellow triage tags) that often required a hospitalization. The greatest decrease was in fact observed for non-urgent complaints. This decreased concerned a wide range of conditions, including chest pain and abdominal pain. The sharp reduction observed in the present study is unlikely to be attributed entirely to the effect of lockdown measures. Individual psychological and media-induced fear of contagion most likely played a relevant role in leading people to avoid seeking medical attention. MDPI 2021-11-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8658732/ /pubmed/34884265 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235563 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bardin, Andrea
Buja, Alessandra
Barbiellini Amidei, Claudio
Paganini, Matteo
Favaro, Andrea
Saia, Mario
Baldo, Vincenzo
Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title_full Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title_fullStr Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title_full_unstemmed Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title_short Elderly People’s Access to Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from a Large Population-Based Study in Italy
title_sort elderly people’s access to emergency departments during the covid-19 pandemic: results from a large population-based study in italy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8658732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34884265
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235563
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