Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown, during the Two Waves, on Drug Use and Emergency Department Access in People with Epilepsy: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 18(24)2021 12 16.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1580738
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy implemented two national lockdowns aimed at reducing virus transmission. We assessed whether these lockdowns affected anti-seizure medication (ASM) use and epilepsy-related access to emergency departments (ED) in the general population.METHODS:
We performed a population-based study using the healthcare administrative database of Tuscany. We defined the weekly time series of prevalence and incidence of ASM, along with the incidence of epilepsy-related ED access from 1 January 2018 to 27 December 2020 in the general population. An interrupted time-series analysis was used to assess the effect of lockdowns on the observed outcomes.RESULTS:
Compared to pre-lockdown, we observed a relevant reduction of ASM incidence (0.65; 95% Confidence Intervals 0.59-0.72) and ED access (0.72; 0.64-0.82), and a slight decrease of ASM prevalence (0.95; 0.94-0.96). During the post-lockdown the ASM incidence reported higher values compared to pre-lockdown, whereas ASM prevalence and ED access remained lower. Results also indicate a lower impact of the second lockdown for both ASM prevalence (0.97; 0.96-0.98) and incidence (0.89; 0.80-0.99).CONCLUSION:
The lockdowns implemented during the COVID-19 outbreaks significantly affected ASM use and epilepsy-related ED access. The potential consequences of these phenomenon are still unknown, although an increased incidence of epilepsy-related symptoms after the first lockdown has been observed. These findings emphasize the need of ensuring continuous care of epileptic patients in stressful conditions such as the COVID-19 pandemic.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pharmaceutical Preparations
/
Epilepsy
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijerph182413253
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