ArticlePloS one2021
Non-COVID-19 patients in times of pandemic: Emergency department visits, hospitalizations and cause-specific mortality in Northern Italy.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 102 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
102 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 189 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Adherence to Chronic Therapies: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Global burden of the COVID-19 associated patient-related delay in emergency healthcare: a panel of systematic review and meta-analyses.Globalization and health · 2022Pooled it
- Heatstroke-related ambulance dispatch risk before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Subgroup analysis by age, severity, and incident place.The Science of the total environment · 2022Pooled it
- Evolving trends and persistent challenges in chronic left ventricular heart failure management: insights from a 9-year analysis of in-hospital outcomes in Germany.Clinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society · 2026Article
- Modified HEART score to improve ruling out acute coronary syndrome at the emergency department.Internal and emergency medicine · 2026Article
- The illusion of improved nurse staffing levels in South Korea during COVID-19: a statistical artifact of policy changes and declining patient volume.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Delayed at the Door: Impact of Pandemic Response Policies on Emergency and Critical Care in Korea: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
- Use of Telehealth in Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessment in Children: Evaluation of an Online Diagnostic Protocol Including the Brief Observation of Symptoms of Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cardiac Related Emergency Department Presentations in Queensland: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA · 2025Article
- Healthcare utilization among Japanese older adults during later stage of prolonged pandemic.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of physician group practice in the operations, quality of care, and service satisfaction in the non-urgent section of an emergency department in a tertiary hospital in the Philippines: a mixed methods study.International journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Regional variations in Italy's COVID-19 death toll: a descriptive analysis of excess mortality and associated factors from 2020 to 2021.Population health metrics · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the accuracy of telephone triage of callers with shortness of breath and/or chest discomfort in Dutch out-of-hours primary care: A retrospective observational study.The European journal of general practice · 2024Observational
- Cause-specific excess mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2022: a study using nationwide population data.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Efficiency of hospitals in COVID-19 era: a case study of an affected country.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2024Article
- The impact of SARS-CoV-2 on emergency health care demand: inverse relationship between COVID-like illnesses and ED accesses in Genoa, Italy.Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Sexually transmitted infections, the epidemic that persists after the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of the primary care electronic health records covering about 5 million people in Catalonia.BMC primary care · 2024Observational
- Impact of the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency department-to-intensive care unit admissions in Korea: an interrupted time-series analysis.BMC emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Non-COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: a longitudinal assessment of 41 million people in 2019-2022.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Changes in emergency department visits and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective analysis of 956 hospitals.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2024Article
42 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic forced healthcare services organization to adjust to mutating healthcare needs. Not exhaustive data are available on the consequences of this on non-COVID-19 patients. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the pandemic on non-COVID-19 patients living in a one-million inhabitants' area in Northern Italy (Bologna Metropolitan Area-BMA), analyzing time trends of Emergency Department (ED) visits, hospitalizations and mortality. We conducted a retrospective observational study using data extracted from BMA healthcare informative systems. Weekly trends of ED visits, hospitalizations, in- and out-of-hospital, all-cause and cause-specific mortality between December 1st, 2019 to May 31st, 2020, were compared with those of the same period of the previous year. Non-COVID-19 ED visits and hospitalizations showed a stable trend until the first Italian case of COVID-19 has been recorded, on February 19th, 2020, when they dropped simultaneously. The reduction of ED visits was observed in all age groups and across all severity and diagnosis groups. In the lockdown period a significant increase was found in overall out-of-hospital mortality (43.2%) and cause-specific out-of-hospital mortality related to neoplasms (76.7%), endocrine, nutritional and metabolic (79.5%) as well as cardiovascular (32.7%) diseases. The pandemic caused a sudden drop of ED visits and hospitalizations of non-COVID-19 patients during the lockdown period, and a concurrent increase in out-of-hospital mortality mainly driven by deaths for neoplasms, cardiovascular and endocrine diseases. As recurrencies of the COVID-19 pandemic are underway, the scenario described in this study might be useful to understand both the population reaction and the healthcare system response at the early phases of the pandemic in terms of reduced demand of care and systems capability in intercepting it.
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