An impact of national lockdown towards emergency department visits and admission rates during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand: A hospital-based study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of the national lockdown due to the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic towards the Emergency Department (ED) visits and admission rates in Thailand.

METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical database of patients presenting to the ED during the national lockdown period (26 March to 30 June 2020). We used the same time interval in the year 2019 as the control period in our analysis. We collected baseline characteristics and outcomes of each patient in the ED. The primary outcome was the incidence rate ratio (IRR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of the average daily ED visits. Secondary outcomes included the IRR with 95% CI of total admissions and ICU admissions.

RESULTS: The average number of daily ED visits decreased significantly from 89.1 to 57.0 (-36.0%, IRR 0.69, 95% CI 0.67-0.70). However, the proportions of 'Resuscitation' and 'Emergency' triage level were increased (29.1% vs. 19.2%, p < 0.001). Total ED admission rate and intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate were also increased (33.5% vs. 28.3%, p < 0.001 and 10.2% vs. 7.5%, p < 0.001, respectively). The IRR for the admission rate was 1.18 (95% CI 1.11-1.26), and the IRR for the ICU admission rate was 1.35 (95% CI 1.21-1.52).

CONCLUSION: The national lockdown in Thailand was associated with a significant reduction in average daily ED visits across traumatic and non-traumatic patients. Communication from healthcare professionals and public health officers is necessary to reinforce the importance of timely ED visits for acute health conditions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.