Did the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak affect the quality of acute stroke care? (Data from across the country).

Introduction: The aim of our study was to determine whether the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the quality of acute care of stroke.

Methods: Data from the stroke register at the National Health Information Centre were analysed. Clinical data from two time periods (the first wave: March-April 2020; the second wave: October-November 2020) were compared using an independent sample -test and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney two sample rank-sum test.

Results: The total number of patients admitted with stroke during the second wave of COVID-19 was 1848, versus 1698 in the first wave. The proportion of patients treated by IVT was similar in both waves (275 (20.7%) vs 333 (22.1%),  = 1, difference in location: -0,0003, 95% CI: -5.0 to 5.95). We found no difference in time from the onset of symptoms to treatment (median = 130 min in both waves,  = 0.52, difference in location: 3.99, 95% CI: -6.0 to 14.0), nor in the door-to-needle time (median = 29 vs 30 min,  = 0.08, difference in location: -2.99, 95% CI: -5.0 to 0.008) between the first and the second waves of the pandemic. We found no difference in NIHSS (median = 3 vs 4,  = 0.51, difference in location: 0.00007, 95% CI: -0.9 to 0.000006) and mRS (median = 3 in both waves,  = 0.60, difference in location: -0.00004, 95% CI: -0.00004 to 0.00003) at discharge from hospital between the two periods.

Conclusion: The severity of the COVID-19 outbreak did not affect the quality of acute stroke care in Slovakia.