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. 2022 Aug 18;12(8):250-258.
doi: 10.5500/wjt.v12.i8.250.

Emergency department visits and hospital admissions in kidney transplant recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic: A hospital-based study

Wachira Wongtanasarasin  1   2 , Phichayut Phinyo  3   4
Affiliations

Emergency department visits and hospital admissions in kidney transplant recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic: A hospital-based study

Wachira Wongtanasarasin et al. World J Transplant. .

Abstract

Background: Several studies have demonstrated that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected daily living and the healthcare system. No previous study has described the consequences of COVID-19 on emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admission among kidney transplant (KT) recipients.

Aim: To investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ED visits and hospital admissions within 1 year in patients who underwent KT in Thailand.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study at a university hospital in Thailand. We reviewed the hospital records of KT patients who visited the ED during the outbreak of COVID-19 (from January 2020 to December 2021). We used the previous 2 years as the control period in the analysis. We obtained baseline demographics and ED visit characteristics for each KT patient. The outcomes of interest were ED visits and ED visits leading to hospital admission within the 1st year following a KT. The rate of ED visits and ED visits leading to hospital admissions between the two periods were compared using the stratified Cox proportional hazards model.

Results: A total of 263 patients were included in this study: 112 during the COVID-19 period and 151 during the control period. There were 34 and 41 ED visits after KT in the COVID-19 and control periods, respectively. The rate of first ED visit at 1 year was not significantly different in the COVID-19 period, compared with the control period [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.54-1.92; P = 0.96]. The hospital admission rate was similar between periods (HR = 0.92, 95%CI: 0.50-1.69; P = 0.78).

Conclusion: ED visits and hospital admissions within the 1st year in KT recipients were not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these findings, we believe that communication between post-KT patients and healthcare providers is essential to highlight the importance of prompt ED visits for acute health conditions, particularly in post-KT patients.

Keywords: Acute health conditions; COVID-19; Emergency department visit; Hospital admission; Kidney transplant.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study flow. COVID-19: Coronavirus disease 2019; ED: Emergency department; KT: Kidney transplantation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kaplan-Meier estimates of first emergency department visits in kidney transplantation patients who visited emergency department during coronavirus disease 2019 period (solid line) and control period (dot line). COVID-19: Coronavirus disease 2019; ED: Emergency department.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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