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. 2021;100(7):588-593.
doi: 10.1159/000515323. Epub 2021 Apr 7.

Reduction in Hospitalizations for Respiratory Diseases during the First COVID-19 Wave in Greece

Christos Kyriakopoulos  1 , Athena Gogali  1 , Konstantinos Exarchos  1 , Dimitrios Potonos  1 , Konstantinos Tatsis  1 , Vasiliki Apollonatou  2 , Stelios Loukides  2 , Spyros Papiris  2 , Ioanna Sigala  3 , Paraskevi Katsaounou  3 , Maximos Aggelidis  4 , Evangelika Fouka  4 , Konstantinos Porpodis  4 , Theodoros Kontakiotis  4 , Fotis Sampsonas  5 , Theodoros Karampitsakos  5 , Argyris Tzouvelekis  5 , Eleni Bibaki  6 , Konstantinos Karagiannis  6 , Katerina Antoniou  6 , Nikolaos Tzanakis  6 , Ilias Dimeas  7 , Zoe Daniil  7 , Konstantinos Gourgoulianis  7 , Maria Kouratzi  8 , Paschalis Steiropoulos  9 , Emmanouil Antonakis  10 , Ilias C Papanikolaou  10 , Georgios Ntritsos  11 , Konstantinos Kostikas  1
Affiliations

Reduction in Hospitalizations for Respiratory Diseases during the First COVID-19 Wave in Greece

Christos Kyriakopoulos et al. Respiration. 2021.

Abstract

Introduction: During the first COVID-19 wave, a considerable decline in hospital admissions was observed worldwide.

Aim: This retrospective cohort study aimed to assess if there were any changes in the number of patients hospitalized for respiratory diseases in Greece during the first CO-VID-19 wave.

Methods: In the present study, we evaluated respiratory disease hospitalization rates across 9 tertiary hospitals in Greece during the study period (March-April 2020) and the corresponding period of the 2 previous years (2018-2019) that served as the control periods. Demographic data and discharge diagnosis were documented for every patient.

Results: Of the 1,307 patients who were hospitalized during the study period, 444 (35.5%) were males with a mean (±SD) age of 66.1 ± 16.6 years. There was a 47 and 46% reduction in all-cause respiratory morbidity compared to the corresponding periods of 2018 and 2019, respectively. The mean incidence rate for respiratory diseases during the study period was 21.4 admissions per day, and this rate was significantly lower than the rate during the same period in 2018 (40.8 admissions per day; incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.525; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.491-0.562; p < 0.001) or the rate during 2019 (39.9 admissions per day; IRR, 0.537; 95% CI, 0.502-0.574; p < 0.001). The greatest reductions (%) in the number of daily admissions in 2020 were observed for sleep apnoea (87% vs. 2018 and 84% vs. 2019) followed by admissions for asthma (76% vs. 2018 and 79% vs. 2019) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (60% vs. 2018 and 51% vs. 2019), while the lowest reductions were detected in hospitalizations for pulmonary embolism (6% vs. 2018 and 23% vs. 2019) followed by tuberculosis (25% vs. both 2018 and 2019).

Discussion/conclusion: The significant reduction in respiratory admissions in 2020 raises the reasonable question of whether some patients may have avoided seeking medical attention during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggests an urgent need for transformation of healthcare systems during the pandemic to offer appropriate management of respiratory diseases other than COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; First pandemic wave; Health services; Hospital admissions; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of admissions for various respiratory diseases in 2018, 2019, and 2020. COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; ILD, interstitial lung disease; FOB/FNB, fibreoptic bronchoscopy/fine needle biopsy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Letter from Greece.
    Kostikas K. Kostikas K. Respirology. 2021 Jul;26(7):715-717. doi: 10.1111/resp.14060. Epub 2021 Apr 16. Respirology. 2021. PMID: 33860979 No abstract available.

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