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.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行对儿科急诊头痛评估的影响

背景

评估 COVID-19 对以头痛为主要症状的儿科急诊科 (ED) 评估的影响。

方法

在 2017 年 1 月至 2022 年 1 月期间收集了在意大利米兰的一个站点的儿科 ED 中评估的患者数量和临床特征。量化了 COVID-19 对评估率的影响经过使用大流行（2020 年 3 月至 2022 年 1 月）和大流行前时期（2017 年 1 月至 2020 年 2 月）之间的发病率比 (IRR) 和 95% 置信区间 (CI)。

结果

在研究期间，登记了 890 项评估：大流行前期间有 689 项，大流行期间有 201 项。评估时的平均年龄为 10 岁（范围：1 至 17 岁）。每月评估率在大流行前时期为 18.1，在 COVID-19 大流行期间为 8.7，秋季和冬季达到高峰，夏季大幅下降。IRR 为 0.49（95% CI，0.40-0.61）。与原发性头痛（IRR，0.56；95% CI，0.40-0.78）相比，继发性头痛（IRR，0.31；95% CI，0.23-0.42）的评估率降低更高。

结论

我们发现在大流行期间，儿科急诊部对头痛的评估数量显着减少。