Genel Tıp Dergisi (Jun 2023)

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on acute appendicitis and negative laparotomy

  • Melike Ordu,
  • Sibel Çiğdem Tuncer,
  • Ayşe Betül Öztürk,
  • Cengizhan Kılıçaslan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.54005/geneltip.1210866
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 33, no. 3
pp. 292 – 294

Abstract

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Background/Aims: Emergency service referrals frequently depend on non-urgent problems which are easy to solve without emergency services. Emergency services should be used effectively to raise service quality, patient and personnel satisfaction. Approximately %30 of emergency service referrals are pediatric patients. Covid-19 pandemia affecting the whole world, caused a decrease in non-covid patient emergency service referral numbers, consequently medically non-emergent patient numbers decreased too. Although the number of patients with a prediagnosis of acute appendicitis did not decrease during the pandemic, negative laparotomy rates decreased due to the effective use of emergency services. Material and Method: In this study we compared patients with prediagnosis of acute appendicitis and undergone appendectomy in our pediatric emergency service between 1 March-1 September 2019 and 1 March-1 September 2020. Patient records were evaluated retrospectively. Histopathological diagnoses were accepted as the gold standard. Result: Decreasing referrals of medically non-emergent patients to emergency services during pandemic led to improvement in service quality, so negative laparotomy rates declined. Looking at the literature, negative laparatomy rates of pediatric patients with the pre-diagnosis of acute appendicitis are 8-30%. In the 6-month period in 2019 negative laparotomy rate of our clinic found as 11.2%. When we examine the 6-month data of 2020 during pandemic we noticed that this rate declined to 2.8%. There was also a statistically significant difference between 2019 and 2020 in terms of the length of stay in the hospital. Conclusions: Because of the decrease in referral numbers of medically non-emergent patients to emergency services during pandemic, much more qualified and scientific service was provided. Community education considering emergency service referral indications could reduce workload density and enhance service quality of emergency services.

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