The impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on emergency department visits of surgical patients
Beslen Göksoy
Abstract
BACKGROUND:The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) formed the basis for emergency department visits.This study aims to evaluate the effects of the pandemic on emergency department visits of surgical patients. METHODS:The hospital database records of general surgery patients who presented at the emergency department in the period of March 2020-May 2020 (pandemic period) and March 2019-May 2019 (non-pandemic period) were retrospectively analyzed and compared.The primary outcome of this study was the emergency department visit rate of patients requiring a general surgery consultation.Secondary outcomes of this study were patient complaints, diagnosis and treatments, treatment rejection rate, triage category data, the effects of age and gender, and the hospitalization rate.RESULTS: In this study, 618 patients were included: 265 patients from the pandemic period and 353 patients from the non-pandemic period.The analysis and comparison revealed that during the pandemic period, the presentation rate of female patients was lower than that of male patients (45.5% vs. 55.5%,respectively, p=0.045).The triage category rates of patient visits to the hospital during the pandemic period were higher in yellow and red, and lower in green (p<0.01).The incidence of a surgical pathology finding was higher during the pandemic period (p=0.019).The incidence of diseases related to the gastrointestinal tract was higher during the pandemic period (p=0.011).The rate of open surgery in the pandemic period was higher than that of the non-pandemic period (80.5% vs. 32.7%,respectively; p<0.01).The treatment rejection rate was also higher in the pandemic period compared with the non-pandemic period (20% vs. 3.7%, respectively; p<0.01, r).In addition, the hospitalization period was shorter in the pandemic period (p=0.021). CONCLUSION:A 25% reduction in the number of surgical patient visits to the emergency department was observed during the COVID-19 outbreak.The biggest decrease was seen in patients with a green triage code and female patients.It is significant to evaluate the effects of the pandemic on surgical patients visited the emergency department to manage the post-epidemic period and to prepare for possible future epidemic periods.