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Multicenter Study
. 2020 Oct 23;10(10):e041514.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041514.

Decreasing referrals to transient ischaemic attack clinics during the COVID-19 outbreak: results from a multicentre cross-sectional survey

Lucio D'Anna  1   2 , Ambreen Sheikh  3 , Raj Bathula  4 , Salwa Elmamoun  5 , Adelaide Oppong  5 , Ravneeta Singh  5 , Rebecca Redwood  5 , John Janssen  5 , Soma Banerjee  6   2 , Evangelos Vasileiadis  7
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Decreasing referrals to transient ischaemic attack clinics during the COVID-19 outbreak: results from a multicentre cross-sectional survey

Lucio D'Anna et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic is having major implications for stroke care with a documented significant fall in hospital acute stroke admissions. We investigated whether COVID-19 has resulted in a decreased number of referrals to the transient ischaemic attack (TIA) clinics across the North West London region.

Setting and design: All the TIA clinical leads of the North West London region received an invitation by email to participate in an online survey in May 2020. The survey questionnaire aimed to assess the number of patients with suspected TIA consecutively referred to each of the TIA clinics of the North West London region between 1 March and 30 April 2020, the COVID-19 period, and between 1 March and 30 April 2019.

Results: We had a response rate of 100%. During the COVID-19 period, the TIA clinics of the North West London region received 440 referrals compared with 616 referrals received between 1 March and 30 April 2019 with a fall in the number of the referrals by 28.6%. In April 2020 compared with April 2019, the number of the referrals declined by 40.1%.

Conclusions: This multicentre analysis documented a significant reduction in the number of patients referred with suspected TIA to the specialised rapid access outpatient clinics in the North West London region during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies are needed to confirm our findings and to better characterise the incidence of cerebrovascular disease during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: preventive medicine; quality in health care; stroke medicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Numbers of patients with suspect of transient ischaemic attack (TIA) referred overall to the TIA clinics of North West London region between 1 March to 30 April 2020 and 1 March to 30 April 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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