Pediatric Emergency Cases in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Tertiary-Level Emergency Setting.
Front Pediatr
; 10: 918286, 2022.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35844743
ABSTRACT
Aim:
Emergency cases are uncommon events in the pediatric emergency setting. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by describing the number and type of pediatric emergency cases that arrived at the pediatric emergency department (PED) of a tertiary-level children's hospital in Italy.Methods:
We performed a retrospective study, collecting the main features of pediatric emergency patients who arrived during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020-February 2021) compared to the pre-pandemic period (March 2016-February 2020).Results:
During the study period, 112,168 patients were visited at the PED, and 237 (0.21%) were emergency cases, median age of 4 years (IQR 1-12). In the first year of the pandemic, 42 children were coded as emergency cases compared to 195 (49/year) during the pre-pandemic period. The proportion of emergency cases was stable (0.27% during the COVID-19 period versus 0.20% during the pre-COVID-19 period, p = 0.19). No differences were found regarding the age, gender, hour of arrival, and outcome of patients. We found a significant decrease in the proportion of emergency cases related to respiratory diseases (9/42, 21.4% during the COVID-19 period versus 83/195 during the pre-COVID-19 period (42.6%), p = 0.01).Conclusion:
In conclusion, our data suggest that the pandemic had a more significant impact on respiratory emergency cases than on pediatric emergencies in general.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2022
Tipo de documento:
Article