Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Headache Evaluations in the Pediatric Emergency Department.
Pediatr Neurol
; 137: 49-53, 2022 12.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2031619
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on evaluations in the pediatric emergency department (ED) because of headache as main symptom.METHODS:
Number and clinical features of patients evaluated in the pediatric ED of a single site in Milan, Italy, were collected between January 2017 and January 2022. The impact of COVID-19 on evaluation rates was quantified by using the incidence rate ratio (IRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) between the pandemic (March 2020 to January 2022) and the prepandemic period (January 2017 to February 2020).RESULTS:
During the study period, 890 evaluations were registered 689 over the prepandemic period and 201 over the pandemic period. Mean age at evaluation was 10 years (range 1 to 17 years). Evaluation rates per month were 18.1 during the prepandemic period and 8.7 during COVID-19 pandemic, with peaks in autumn and winter months and considerable drops in the summer. The IRR was 0.49 (95% CI, 0.40-0.61). The reduction in evaluation rate was higher for secondary headache (IRR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.23-0.42) when compared with primary headache (IRR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.40-0.78).CONCLUSIONS:
We found a remarkable reduction in the number of evaluations in the pediatric ED for headache during the pandemic period.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Humans
/
Infant
Language:
English
Journal:
Pediatr Neurol
Journal subject:
Neurology
/
Pediatrics
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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