ArticleCritical care (London, England)2021
In the eye of the storm: impact of COVID-19 pandemic on admission patterns to paediatric intensive care units in the UK and Eire.
Article in Critical care (London, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Conservative versus liberal oxygenation targets in critically ill children: the Oxy-PICU RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2026Trial
- RSV bronchiolitis versus COVID-19: could pediatric intensive care units have done more during the pandemic?BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Article
- Delirium in critically ill children: a retrospective pre- and post-cohort study on the introduction of delirium screening in a paediatric intensive care unit.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2025Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Diabetic Ketoacidosis Patients Treated in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Single-Center Cross-Sectional Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Article
- Prevalence of extracorporeal blood purification techniques in critically ill patients before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt.Acute and critical care · 2024Article
- The care of critically ill adults with COVID-19 in Ontario pediatric intensive care units.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2023Article
- Hospital admissions linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adolescents: cohort study of 3.2 million first ascertained infections in England.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Article
- Article
- Accessing healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative exploration of the experiences of parents and carers of children with chronic illness to inform future policies in times of crisis.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Epidemiology and Risk Factor Analysis of Children with Bronchiolitis Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at a Tertiary Care Center in Saudi Arabia.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Antibiotic Indications and Appropriateness in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A 10-Center Point Prevalence Study.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2023Article
- Pediatric intensive care unit admissions network-rationale, framework and method of operation of a nationwide collaborative pediatric intensive care research network in Germany.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Impact of the First COVID Lockdown on Accident- and Injury-Related Pediatric Intensive Care Admissions in Germany-A Multicenter Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Risk factors for PICU admission and death among children and young people hospitalized with COVID-19 and PIMS-TS in England during the first pandemic year.Nature medicine · 2022Article
- Administrative data in pediatric critical care research-Potential, challenges, and future directions.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic had a relatively minimal direct impact on critical illness in children compared to adults. However, children and paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) were affected indirectly. We analysed the impact of the pandemic on PICU admission patterns and patient characteristics in the UK and Ireland.
methodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study of all admissions to PICUs in children < 18 years during Jan-Dec 2020, using data collected from 32 PICUs via a central database (PICANet). Admission patterns, case-mix, resource use, and outcomes were compared with the four preceding years (2016-2019) based on the date of admission.
resultsThere were 16,941 admissions in 2020 compared to an annual average of 20,643 (range 20,340-20,868) from 2016 to 2019. During 2020, there was a reduction in all PICU admissions (18%), unplanned admissions (20%), planned admissions (15%), and bed days (25%). There was a 41% reduction in respiratory admissions, and a 60% reduction in children admitted with bronchiolitis but an 84% increase in admissions for diabetic ketoacidosis during 2020 compared to the previous years. There were 420 admissions (2.4%) with either PIMS-TS or COVID-19 during 2020. Age and sex adjusted prevalence of unplanned PICU admission reduced from 79.7 (2016-2019) to 63.1 per 100,000 in 2020. Median probability of death [1.2 (0.5-3.4) vs. 1.2 (0.5-3.4) %], length of stay [2.3 (1.0-5.5) vs. 2.4 (1.0-5.7) days] and mortality rates [3.4 vs. 3.6%, (risk-adjusted OR 1.00 [0.91-1.11, p = 0.93])] were similar between 2016-2019 and 2020. There were 106 fewer in-PICU deaths in 2020 (n = 605) compared with 2016-2019 (n = 711).
conclusionsThe use of a high-quality international database allowed robust comparisons between admission data prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant reduction in prevalence of unplanned admissions, respiratory diseases, and fewer child deaths in PICU observed may be related to the targeted COVID-19 public health interventions during the pandemic. However, analysis of wider and longer-term societal impact of the pandemic and public health interventions on physical and mental health of children is required.
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