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Effect of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Pediatric Patients’ Admissions to the Emergency Department in an Italian Orthopedic Trauma Hub
Laura Mangiavini
IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi
Corresponding Author
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1892-1249
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
Background: The rapid diffusion of Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Northern Italy led Italian government to dictate national lockdown since March 12th 2020 to May 5th 2020. Aim of the study is to analyze the differences in the number of pediatric patients’ admission to the Emergency Room (ER) and in the type and causes of injury.
Methods: The pediatric population was divided in a Pandemic group (PG) and Non-Pandemic group (NP). Sex, age, triage color-code at admission, declared cause of trauma and presence of symptoms related to COVID-19 infection, discharge diagnosis and discharge modes were investigated.
Results: The Lockdown period led to a reduction of 87.0% in the ER admissions with a particular decrease in patients older than 12 years old from 41.8% in NG to 22.3% in PG. Moreover, a trend towards more severe codes was observed in the PG and the diagnosis of fracture was less frequent in NG (p<0,0001) and injuries at home were more frequent (34.8% compared to 6.8% in NG).
Conclusions: A significant decrease in the ER attendances in our Trauma Hub center was reported after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a shift in the cause and type of injury undoubtedly was observed and only the most serious traumas sought the medical care with an higher percentage of severe triage codes and fractures.
Level of evidence: III
Keywords
COVID-19, Pediatric Trauma HUB, outbreak, ER admissions
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This is a preprint. It has not completed peer review.
Research
Effect of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Pediatric Patients’ Admissions to the Emergency Department in an Italian Orthopedic Trauma Hub
Laura Mangiavini
IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi
Corresponding Author
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1892-1249
Badges
Prescreen
This manuscript passed our Prescreen assessment
Complete author information
Appropriate declaration statements
Potential risks to human health
Prescreen
History
CURRENT STATUS: Posted
Version 1
Posted 17 Sep, 2020
No community comments so far
Metrics
Comments: 0
PDF Downloads: ...
HTML Views: ...
Subject Areas
Pediatrics
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
Background: The rapid diffusion of Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Northern Italy led Italian government to dictate national lockdown since March 12th 2020 to May 5th 2020. Aim of the study is to analyze the differences in the number of pediatric patients’ admission to the Emergency Room (ER) and in the type and causes of injury.
Methods: The pediatric population was divided in a Pandemic group (PG) and Non-Pandemic group (NP). Sex, age, triage color-code at admission, declared cause of trauma and presence of symptoms related to COVID-19 infection, discharge diagnosis and discharge modes were investigated.
Results: The Lockdown period led to a reduction of 87.0% in the ER admissions with a particular decrease in patients older than 12 years old from 41.8% in NG to 22.3% in PG. Moreover, a trend towards more severe codes was observed in the PG and the diagnosis of fracture was less frequent in NG (p<0,0001) and injuries at home were more frequent (34.8% compared to 6.8% in NG).
Conclusions: A significant decrease in the ER attendances in our Trauma Hub center was reported after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a shift in the cause and type of injury undoubtedly was observed and only the most serious traumas sought the medical care with an higher percentage of severe triage codes and fractures.
Level of evidence: III
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3