Observational studyCMAJ open
Effect of COVID-19 on computed tomography usage and critical test results in the emergency department: an observational study.
Observational study in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Have Chest Imaging Habits Changed in the Emergency Department after the Pandemic?Tomography (Ann Arbor, Mich.) · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID pandemic on emergency department CT utilization: where do we go from here?Emergency radiology · 2022Observational
- Long-COVID diagnosis: From diagnostic to advanced AI-driven models.European journal of radiology · 2022Review
- Nuclear Medicine Departments in the Era of COVID-19.Seminars in nuclear medicine · 2022Review
- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Trauma CT Imaging.Radiology research and practice · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on new or unexpected radiologic findings in the emergency department (ED) is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of computed tomography (CT) critical test results in the ED.
methodsWe performed a retrospective observational study of ED CT usage at 4 Ontario hospitals (1 urban academic, 1 northern academic, 1 urban community and 1 rural community) over 1 month during the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020) and over the same month 1 year earlier (April 2019; before the pandemic). The CT findings from 1 of the 4 hospitals, Hamilton Health Sciences, were reviewed to determine the number of critical test results by body region. Total CT numbers were compared using Poisson regression and CT yields were compared using the χ
resultsThe median number of ED CT examinations per day was markedly lower during the COVID-19 pandemic than before the pandemic (82 v. 133,
interpretationEmergency department CT volumes markedly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, predominantly because there were fewer examinations with new or unexpected findings. This suggests that COVID-19 public information campaigns influenced the behaviours of patients presenting to the ED.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.