The Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Thoracic Trauma Patients with on Transferred to the Emergency Service

Objective: On March 11 2020, World Health Organization declared Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic. Trauma, and particularly thoracic trauma, may not be prominent with the coronavirus, but there is a serious risk to the patient's life and needs to be planned. Our study aims to reveal the effects of the current pandemic on the distribution of patients with thoracic trauma transferred to the emergency service.
Methods: In this study, patients with thoracic trauma who were transferred to the emergency services by ambulance between March 2019 and March 2021 were examined. The study group was divided into two as pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Data such as trauma type, gender, age, type of thoracic injury area were included in the study.
Results: The total number of patients referred to the emergency department in the pre-pandemic period was 267,897. During the pandemic period, there were 167,729 patients. In the pre-pandemic period, traffic accidents were in the first place, with 72,293 patients. In the pandemic period, falls were in the first place with 37,256 patients. When the study data were examined, there was a significant difference in terms of the total number of patients in the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods (p=0.021). Both groups were evaluated in terms of the type of trauma, there was a significant difference (p=0.017).
Conclusion: The implementation of various preventions in the COVID-19 pandemic and the reduction of human movements decreased the number of patients with thoracic trauma. Along with the decrease in the number of patients, the COVID-19 pandemic has also created differences in the etiology of trauma.