Emergency calls for time-depending during COVID-19 outbreak in center Italy

ABSTRACT

In the present study we analysed the emergency calls to the Umbrian Emergency Medical System (reached by dialling the emergency telephone number 118), that occurred for time-dependent-illnesses during the pandemic. Our analysis included all out-of- hospital ACSs, strokes and cardiac arrests electronically stored in the Emergency Department database. During the trimester 1st February- 30th April a total of 61,867 and 63,194 calls were registered in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In year 2020, compared to year 2019, there was a significant reduction in the frequency of calls to 118 for ACS (0.009% vs 0.14% 2=25.71, p=0.01), a non-significant reduction in the calls due to stroke (0.48% vs 0.5% 2=1.1, p=0.2) and cardiac arrest (0.43% vs 0.47%;2=2.85, p=0.09). Overall, these findings strongly suggest that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lower attention has been posed to time-dependent illness. This dramatically led to a general underutilization of the emergency medical system, and consequently reduced the number of time-dependent hospitalizations. Considering the differences among ACS calls with respect to stroke calls, we could speculate that patients who have a clinical presentation with mild symptoms have preferred to stay at home, given the widespread fear of going to hospitals.