The Volume of Trauma-Related Emergency Department Visits During the COVID-19 Pandemic

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Travmaya Bağlı Acil Servis Başvurularındaki DeğişimlerAim: After the first case in Wuhan, China in late 2019, COVID-19 quickly spread and affected the whole world.While it had been recommended to postpone healthcare services for non-emergency cases, several studies showed that many emergency cases were decreased as well.In this study, we aimed to investigate whether the trends in visits to the emergency department (ED) were altered during the COVID period. Material and Method:We evaluated the ED visits between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020 due to transport injuries, falls, interpersonal violence and self-harm using International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes.Pre-COVID period was defined as July 2019-Mar 2020 and COVID period was defined as April-June 2020.To show whether there was a significant change between pre-COVID and COVID periods (monthly), we used piecewise regression analyses.Results: In total, there were 14,958 ED visits due to transport injuries, falls, interpersonal violence and self-harm during the study period.Piecewise regression analysis revealed that ED visits for transport injury (p=0.028),falls (p=0.006) and interpersonal violence (p=0.007)significantly decreased, whereas, there was a significant increase in visits for self-harm (p<0.001) in COVID period, when compared with pre-COVID period.Conclusion: This is the first study showing that the number of ED visits for transport injury, falls and interpersonal violence were decreased and those for self-harm were increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.A maximum effort should be made by authorities to understand the reason behind these trends, particularly for self-harm behaviors.