AI Article Synopsis

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected healthcare systems, altering the allocation of resources and impacting people's willingness or ability to seek medical help for emergencies.
  • A systematic review compared the incidence of medical emergencies before and during the pandemic, focusing on conditions needing urgent care.
  • Findings revealed increased delays and complications in several medical emergencies during COVID-19, highlighting the need to address the resulting barriers to timely healthcare as a major health concern.

Article Abstract

Background: Apart from infecting a large number of people around the world and causing the death of many people, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have changed the healthcare processes of other diseases by changing the allocation of health resources and changing people's access or intention to healthcare systems.

Objective: To compare the incidence of endpoints marking delayed healthcare seeking in medical emergencies, before and during the pandemic.

Methods: Based on a PICO model, medical emergency conditions that need timely intervention was selected to be evaluated as separate panels. In a systematic literature review, PubMed was quarried for each panel for studies comparing the incidence of various medical emergencies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Markers of failure/disruption of treatment due to delayed referral were included in the meta-analysis for each panel.

Result: There was a statistically significant increased pooled median time of symptom onset to admission of the acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients; an increased rate of vasospasm of aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage; and perforation rate in acute appendicitis; diabetic ketoacidosis presentation rate among Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus patients; and rate of orchiectomy among testicular torsion patients in comparison of pre-COVID-19 with COVID-19 cohorts; while there were no significant changes in the event rate of ruptured ectopic pregnancy and median time of symptom onset to admission in the cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients.

Conclusions: COVID-19 has largely disrupted the referral of patients for emergency medical care and patient-related delayed care should be addressed as a major health threat.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9175527PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-022-00836-2DOI Listing

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