Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on emergency urological admissions at a tertiary university hospital

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey has led to many challenges in the healthcare system. We aimed to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on urological emergencies admissions to a tertiary center.METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed urological consultations requested by the emergency department (ED) in the periods between 15 March 2019-15 March 2020 and 15 March 2020-15 March 2021. We included patients who were admitted to the ED for urologic emergencies. The reason for consultation, history of malignancy, intervention necessity, the status of admission to ED, and hospitalization/discharge status were evaluated.RESULTS: There was a total of 1247 urological consultations in the prepandemic period and 1197 in the pandemic period. During the pandemic, there was an increase in the number of women and a decrease in the number of men admitted to ED (P=0.011). Among the ED admissions, we found a significant decrease in the number of independent admissions and a significant increase in the number of patients transferred to the ED compared to the prepandemic period (76.9% vs. 61.6% and 23.1% vs. 38.4%, respectively, P=0.004). We found a significant decrease in consultations patients with urinary tract infection, renal colic, and a significant increase with postrenal renal failure, catheter dysfunction, and trauma (P=0.001) during the pandemic.CONCLUSIONS: We are experiencing a new challenge with the COVID 19 pandemic. Well-organized healthcare system will prevent the problems to be experienced and help to reduce the burden concentrated on some centers thus that the health system will be maintained more properly.