Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on use of Pediatric Emergency Health Services in a Tertiary Care Pediatric Hospital in North India

Objective To compare Pediatric Emergency attendance pre-COVID 19 to that during COVID 19 pandemic and to study changes in patient profiles attending Pediatric Emergency Department during COVID 19 pandemic. Methods We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional observational study and collected data from Medical Record Section during the COVID-19 pandemic from January to June 2020 and compared it with data from 2019 in similar months. Data collected was analyzed to find out the impact of COVID – 19 on use of pediatric emergency health services with respect to patient attendance, age and clinical profile before and during COVID-19 in a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi. Results We observed a 43% decline in PED visits which increased to 75% during the period of lock-down (p value = 0.005). There was a significant decrease in children of age group 1-5 years attending PED. Mortality rate during lockdown had gone up by nearly 3times than the average monthly mortality. Conclusions While children might not have been directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the fear of COVID 19 and measures taken to control the pandemic has affected the health seeking behavior of patients to an extent that indirectly caused more damage than anticipated.