Objectives:

It was aimed to examine the impact of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) on admissions to emergency department by comparing emergency department patient visits during the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period and the pandemic period.

Materials and Methods:

In order to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency department visits, emergency department visits one year before the first pandemic case in Turkey (pre-pandemic period) and one year after the first case (pandemic period) were compared. Demographic data of the patients were collected retrospectively. The reasons for the visits of patients to the emergency department were recorded by examining the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) code ICD-10 codes were divided into 10 main categories in clinically significant groups.

Results:

A total of 917,335 patients were admitted to the emergency department between the dates specified as the study period of these patients, 65.65% (n=602,231) were in the pre-pandemic period and 34.35% (n=315,104) were in the pandemic period. It was observed that there was a 47.7% decrease in emergency department visits during the pandemic period compared to the pre-pandemic period. Also, during the pandemic period, admissions to the emergency department concerning neurological, respiratory, genitourinary, trauma, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, muscle-skeletal, eye diseases, ear diseases, and other diagnoses of diseases showed a reduction of 46.7%, 46.7%, 39.2%, 38.2%, 67.8%, 43.4%, 29.2%, 49.6%, 72.6%, and 54%, respectively.

Conclusion:

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly reduced emergency department visits for all disease diagnostic groups. The effect of this situation on morbidity and mortality in patients will be revealed in future studies.

Keywords: COVID-19, Emergency Service, Pandemic