Changes in ischemic stroke presentations and associated workflow during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: A population study

ABSTRACT

Background: Pandemics may promote hospital avoidance among patients with emergencies, and added precautions may exacerbate treatment delays. Methods: We used linked administrative data and data from the Quality Improvement and Clinical Research Alberta Stroke Program - a registry capturing stroke related data on the entire Albertan population (4.3 million) - to identify all patients hospitalized with stroke in the pre-pandemic (01/01/2016-27/02/2020) and COVID-19 pandemic (28/02/ 2020-30/08/2020) periods. We examined changes in stroke presentation rates and use of thrombolysis and endovascular therapy (EVT), adjusted for age, sex, comorbidities, and preadmission care needs;and in workflow, stroke severity (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale/NIHSS), and in-hospital outcomes. Results: We analyzed 19,531 patients with ischemic stroke pre-pandemic versus 2,255 during the pandemic. Hospitalizations/presentations dropped (weekly adjusted-incidencerate-ratio[aIRR]0.48,95%CI0.46-0.50), as did population-level incidence of thrombolysis (aIRR0.49,0.44-0.56) or EVT (aIRR0.59,0.49-0.69). However, proportions of presenting patients receiving thrombolysis/EVT did not decline (thrombolysis11.7% pre-pandemic vs 13.1% during-pandemic, aOR1.02, 0.75-1.38). For out-of-hospital strokes, onset-to-door times were prolonged(adjusted-coefficient37.0-minutes, 95%CI16.5-57.5), and EVT recipients experienced greater door-to-reperfusion delays (adjusted-coefficient18.7-minutes,1.45-36.0). NIHSS scores and in-hospital mortality did not differ. Conclusions: The first COVID-19 wave was associated with a halving of presentations and acute therapy utilization for ischemic stroke at a population level, and greater pre-/in-hospital treatment delays. Our data can inform public health messaging and stroke care in future pandemic waves.