The impact of COVID-19 outbreak on cardiovascular admissions

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption in the health care deliveries and activities worldwide including hospital admission. Method: We used hospitals discharged coded data from January 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 to examine the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the pattern of cardiovascular admission among Hamad Medical Corporation hospitals in the State of Qatar. Results: In this retrospective observational study, we documented significant changes in the pattern of cardiovascular admissions in our hospitals. There was a significant reduction in hospitalizations of various subsets of cardiac disease. Admissions for acute myocardial infarction dropped by 31%, acute decompensated dropped by 48%, unstable angina dropped by 79% and arrythmia by 80%. Primary percutaneous coronary intervention procedures declined briefly. However, the total deaths remained the same despite the increase in mortality rate due to reduced admissions number. Conclusion: We postulate the fear of contracting the disease and the lock-down mentality during COVID-19 outbreak contribute to reduction of cardiovascular admission to our hospital.

Keywords

• admission
• cardiovascular
• covid-19
• mortality
• primary percutaneous coronary intervention