Influence Of Full Lockdown On Patients’ Attendance In The Emergency Surgical Specialties Department Of A Tertiary Hospital In Athens, Greece; Preliminary Results Amid Covid-19 Outbreak

Aims A full lockdown was forced in Greece due to the COVID-19 pandemic for 53 days and specifically from 03/13/2020 to 05/04/2020. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of lockdown on the number of patients visiting the Emergency Surgical Specialties Department (ESSD) of a tertiary Greek hospital. It is common sense that the vast majority of patients examined in the ESSD have no symptoms related to SARS-CoV-2. In the Emergency Department (ED) of our hospital, there are 6 different surgical specialties domains; Vascular Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Urology, Opthalmology, General Surgery, and Otorhinolaryngology.

Methods In this retrospective study, data exported from the Sismanogleio General Hospital’s Emergency Department were studied during 4 different periods; a) the full lockdown period of 53 days, from 03/13/2020 to 05/04/2020, b) the period of 53 days right before the lockdown, from 01/20/2020 to 03/12/2020, c) the period of 53 days right after the lockdown, from 05/05/2020 to 06/26/2020 and d) the time period of the previous year that is analogous with the lockdown duration, from 03/13/2019 to 05/04/2019.

Results The number of patients visiting the ESSD of our hospital was significantly altered during the lockdown period ([Tab. 1]). The reduction of this number is remarkable compared to the rest time periods of the study. To be exact, this decrease is 54.74 %, 51.53 %, and 61.93 % compared to the pre-traffic ban duration, the post-ban span, and the previous year’s similar time period.

Tab. 1

	03/13/2020 - 05/04/2020	01/20/2020 - 03/12/2020	05/05/2020 - 06/26/2020	03/13/2019 - 05/04/2019
Time period description	full lockdown	before full lockdown	after full lockdown	last year, a period similar to that of lockdown
Number of patients visiting the ESSD of Sismanogleio General Hospital	745	1646	1537	1957

Conclusions Data provided by our ED is congruent with many other reports all over the world showing a dramatic lessening of people attending the ESSD amid the outbreak of COVID-19. People’s angst about contracting the disease was undoubtedly the most obvious reason for that.

Citation Tsekouras K, Orfanos S, Karlis G et al. eP498 INFLUENCE OF FULL LOCKDOWN ON PATIENTS’ ATTENDANCE IN THE EMERGENCY SURGICAL SPECIALTIES DEPARTMENT OF A TERTIARY HOSPITAL IN ATHENS, GREECE; PRELIMINARY RESULTS AMID COVID-19 OUTBREAK. Endoscopy 2021; 53: S263.

Publication History

Article published online:
19 March 2021