ABSTRACT
Background: To face the health emergency due to the first spread in Italy of COVID- 19, a nationwide lockdown was instituted from 9 March to 3 May 2020. During this period all the hospital outpatient activities were suspended except for urgent cases. Objective: To evaluate the cardiological urgent outpatient examinations done in our hospital during the lockdown in view of the reduced hospitalizations and the increased cardiovascular deaths observed during the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: The urgent cardiological examinations (requests with priority U and B, i.e., to be done within 3 and 10 days respectively) performed during the 8-week period of lockdown (38 working days) were compared with those performed during the same period in the previous year (37 working days). During the lockdown and the control period, the availability of urgent cardiological visits was the same (2 per day with priority U and 2 per day with priority B). The number of cardiological examinations performed and the main characteristics of the subjects attending the outpatient clinic in the two periods were evaluated, comparing them with the chi-square test and considering as significant p values <0.05. Results: The table shows the number of urgent cardiological outpatient examinations done on those available in the two periods under comparison. Cardiological urgent outpatient examinations LOCKDOWN CONTROL Chi-square p • with priority U (performed/available) 41/76 (53.9%) 71/74 (95.9%) 34.96 <0.01 • with priority B (performed/available) 28/76 (36.8%) 69/74 (93.2%) 52.20 <0.01 The reduction in the number of urgent cardiological outpatient examinations done during the lockdown was observed from the first week with a nadir at the third and a subsequent slow return to normality at the end of eight weeks. No significant differences in age, sex, history of heart diseases, reasons and outcomes of the examinations were observed in patients evaluated in the two periods. Conclusion: During the first lockdown introduced in Italy to face the COVID-19 pandemic, a statistically significant reduction of accesses to the outpatient clinic for urgent cardiological examinations of our hospital was observed with possible negative consequences in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in the community.