Decline in stroke alerts and hospitalisations during the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionPatients with stroke-like symptoms may be underutilising emergency medical services and avoiding hospitalisation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated a decline in admissions for stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and emergency department (ED) stroke alert activations.Me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Stroke and vascular neurology 2020-12, Vol.5 (4), p.403-405
Main Authors: Sharma, Malveeka, Lioutas, Vasileios-Arsenios, Madsen, Tracy, Clark, Judith, O'Sullivan, Jillian, Elkind, Mitchell S. V., Willey, Joshua Z., Marshall, Randolph S., Selim, Magdy H., Greer, David, Tirschwell, David L., Burton, Tina, Boehme, Amelia, Aparicio, Hugo J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brief Report
Cities
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Emergency Medical Services - statistics & numerical data
Emergency services
Female
Health care
Hospitalization - statistics & numerical data
Humans
infection
Ischemic Attack, Transient - epidemiology
Male
Middle Aged
Pandemics
Patient admissions
Retrospective Studies
Stroke
Stroke - epidemiology
Time series
Time-to-Treatment
Transient ischemic attack
Trends
United States - epidemiology
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Summary:IntroductionPatients with stroke-like symptoms may be underutilising emergency medical services and avoiding hospitalisation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated a decline in admissions for stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and emergency department (ED) stroke alert activations.MethodsWe retrospectively compiled total weekly hospital admissions for stroke and TIA between 31 December 2018 and 21 April 2019 versus 30 December 2019 and 19 April 2020 at five US tertiary academic comprehensive stroke centres in cities with early COVID-19 outbreaks in Boston, New York City, Providence and Seattle. We collected available data on ED stroke alerts, stroke severity using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and time from symptom onset to hospital arrival.ResultsCompared with 31 December 2018 to 21 April 2019, a decline in stroke/TIA admissions and ED stroke alerts occurred during 30 December 2019 to 19 April 2020 (p trend
ISSN:2059-8688
2059-8696
DOI:10.1136/svn-2020-000441