Effect of COVID‐19 pandemic on stroke admission rates in a Norwegian population

Abstract

The COVID-19 declared pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 challenges healthcare systems and societies worldwide. 1,2 Many health professionals have questioned whether the public anxiety around COVID-19 discourages some patients from contacting the healthcare system. After the pandemic lockdown in the UK, there was a 25% fall in emergency room attendances the first week. 3 If this fall continues, it may be asked whether a substantial proportion of the population are missing treatment opportunities with potentially long-term harm as a consequence. Rapid admission to hospital following stroke is vital in ensuring patients have timely access to treatments such as thrombolysis and endovascular treatment. 4 The effect of acute stroke treatment is highly time dependent with late admission being an independent predictor of worse outcome. 5-8 It is therefore feared that a large number of stroke patients are at increased risk of dependency or death if they do not seek emergency help. During the pandemic, there have been many anecdotal reports that the number of stroke patients seen in the emergency

Impact of Covid-19 on the Behavior of Community Residents With Suspected Transient Ischemic Attack

“…A study in Hong Kong compared the stroke registry data of a comprehensive stroke center 60 days after the first diagnosis of Covid-19 case with the same period in 2019 and noticed a nearly 80% reduction in the presentation with TIA ( 4 ). The drop in the presentation with TIA was also observed in Brazil, Germany, and Norway, ranging from 30 to 80% ( 3 , 5 , 6 ).…”

COVID-19 and its effect on emergency presentations to a tertiary hospital with self-harm in Ireland

“…It is possible that people who are at risk or may have self-harmed may not have sought medical attention in the hospital setting if they perceived that the self-harm was not severe enough as to require immediate medical attention, due to the severity of the pandemic in the country at that time. Fear among the public about attending hospital during the lockdown dissuaded many with serious or potentially life-threatening conditions from seeking medical care, including those with strokes and acute coronary syndromes (Kristoffersen et al, 2020, Mafham et al, 2020. During the early stages of the lockdown, it is possible that only those with the most severs self-harm attended hospital.…”

Reduced rate of admissions for acute coronary syndromes during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational analysis from a tertiary hospital in Germany

“…Study conception, design, analysis and interpretation: PT, drafting of the manuscript: GV, PB and PT. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: all authors troublesome findings being likely multifactorial and not yet studied in depth [3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

“…As a result of this and as a measure to avoid in-hospital contagion, elective non-urgent procedures and hospital admissions were drastically reduced and postponed in all medical specialties, while the management of urgent cases proceeded unchanged [ 2 ]. However, recent publications show that urgent and potentially life-saving procedures and admissions have also been inadvertently reduced, the reasons for such troublesome findings being likely multifactorial and not yet studied in depth [ 3 – 8 ].…”