What has changed during the state of emergency due to COVID-19 on an Academic Urology Department of a Tertiary Hospital in Portugal

Abstract

Objective To compare the activity the Urology Department of a Portuguese Academic Hospital during the state of emergency and the equivalent period at the previous year. We compared the number of elective consultations and diagnostic urologic examinations, number and type of elective surgeries, as well as patients’ demographic characteristics and main causes of presentation to Urology Emergency Department (ED) during the two mentioned periods. Materials and methods Data from 691 patients coming to emergency department were collected from institutional clinical software from March 18th 2020 to May 2nd 2020—and from the same period the previous year. Data collected were age, sex, day of the presentation to Emergency Department, referral from other hospitals, triage color, reason of admission, diagnosis of discharge, and the need for emergency surgery or hospitalization. In order to identify associations between demographic and clinical variables with having been submitted to an emergency surgery (outcome), logistic regression models were applied. Results Multivariable analysis showed an association of sex with being submitted to surgery, 65.6% decrease in the odds for the male gender. The period (COVID versus non-COVID) did not show a significant association with surgery. Conclusion Our department experienced an noticeable activity reduction. We also observe a reduction in urgent causes to attend the ED considered less serious. The percentage of cases requiring emergency surgery and hospitalization was higher during COVID-period.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Intensity of Health Services Use in General Practice: A Retrospective Cohort Study

“…Decreases in health care utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic have been reported in different health care systems and settings. Findings include decreases in consultations to emergency departments [ 5 , 8 , 11 ], psychiatric emergency consultations and number of admissions to psychiatric clinics [ 7 , 10 ], visits from patients living with HIV [ 16 ], non-urgent and surgical ophthalmologic care [ 9 ], urologic examinations [ 6 ], first diagnoses of diabetes and circulatory system diseases [ 17 ], hospitalization for a range of diagnoses [ 18 ], as well as different types of preventive and elective care (e.g. mammograms, colonoscopies) [ 12 ].…”

A Multinational Study of The Impact of Covid-19 On Urologic Surgery Residency and Wellbeing

“…Previous surveys have demonstrated that COVID-19 has had a large impact on resident surgical education in the US 4,12 Italy, 3,16,[23][24] France, 6,25 and Portugal. 26 However, despite the differences in baseline residency characteristics, governmental responses to the pandemic, and timing of peak caseloads, no studies to our knowledge have directly assessed how these changes have impacted residents across the globe. 1,27 Of note, the surveyed countries are all categorized as high income countries heavily affected by the early initial peak in COVID-19 cases.…”