SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impact on Pediatric Emergency Rooms: A Multicenter Study

From 9 March to 3 May 2020, lockdown was declared in Italy due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Our aim was to evaluate how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and related preventive strategies affected pediatric emergency rooms (ERs) during this period. We performed a retrospective cohort multicenter study, comparing the lockdown period to the corresponding period in 2019. We examined 15 Italian pediatric ERs in terms of visit rates, specific diagnoses (grouped as air communicable diseases and non-air communicable diseases), and triage categories. During the lockdown period, ER admissions decreased by 81% compared to 2019 (52,364 vs. 10,112). All ER specific diagnoses decreased in 2020 and this reduction was significantly higher for air communicable diseases (25,462 vs. 2934, p < 0.001). Considering the triage category, red codes remained similar (1% vs. 1%), yellow codes increased (11.2% vs. 22.3%), and green codes decreased (80.3% vs. 69.5%). We can speculate that social distancing and simple hygiene measures drastically reduced the spread of air communicable diseases. The increase in yellow codes may have been related to a delay in primary care and, consequently, in ER admissions. View Full-Text

Keywords: air communicable infections; emergency rooms; lockdown measures; pediatric; pandemic; SARS-CoV-2

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Supplementary Material

Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 1874 KiB)

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Matera, L.; Nenna, R.; Rizzo, V.; Ardenti Morini, F.; Banderali, G.; Calvani, M.; Calvi, M.; Cozzi, G.; Fabiani, E.; Falsaperla, R.; Kantar, A.; Lanari, M.; Lubrano, R.; Messini, B.; Niccoli, A.A.; Scoppi, P.; Tipo, V.; Midulla, F., on behalf of the CICERO Group. SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impact on Pediatric Emergency Rooms: A Multicenter Study. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 8753. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238753

AMA Style

Matera L, Nenna R, Rizzo V, Ardenti Morini F, Banderali G, Calvani M, Calvi M, Cozzi G, Fabiani E, Falsaperla R, Kantar A, Lanari M, Lubrano R, Messini B, Niccoli AA, Scoppi P, Tipo V, Midulla F on behalf of the CICERO Group. SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impact on Pediatric Emergency Rooms: A Multicenter Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17(23):8753. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238753

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matera, Luigi, Raffaella Nenna, Valentina Rizzo, Francesca Ardenti Morini, Giuseppe Banderali, Mauro Calvani, Matteo Calvi, Giorgio Cozzi, Elisabetta Fabiani, Raffaele Falsaperla, Ahmad Kantar, Marcello Lanari, Riccardo Lubrano, Beatrice Messini, Antonio A. Niccoli, Pietro Scoppi, Vincenzo Tipo, and Fabio Midulla on behalf of the CICERO Group. 2020. "SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impact on Pediatric Emergency Rooms: A Multicenter Study" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 23: 8753. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238753

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impact on Pediatric Emergency Rooms: A Multicenter Study

Abstract

Supplementary Material

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI