Innovation, Research and Teaching Service (SABES-ASDAA), Teaching Hospital of the Paracelsus Medical Private University (PMU), Bolzano, Italy.
Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Vascular Sciences and Public Health, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Epilepsy Behav. 2024 May;154:109763. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2024.109763. Epub 2024 Mar 30.
To investigate the impact of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, its related social restriction measure (national lockdown) and vaccination campaign on emergency department (ED) accesses for epileptic seizures.
Retrospective observational analysis conducted on a consecutive cohort of patients who sought medical care at the ED of the General Hospital of Merano, Italy, from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2021. We investigated the monthly ED attendances for epileptic seizures between the periods before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdown (March 2020) using an interrupted time-series analysis with data standardized for 1000 accesses/month. As a further temporal cutoff, we used the start of the national vaccination campaign.
Between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2021, a total of 415,005 ED attendances were recorded; 1,254 (0.3 %) were due to epileptic seizures. No significant difference was found in the rate of standardized ED accesses for epileptic seizures in March 2020 (time point of interest) to the pre-pandemic trend (0.33/1000; 95 %CI: -1.05 to 1.71; p = 0.637). Similarly, there was no difference between the pre- and post-pandemic trends (-0.02/1000; 95 %CI: -0.11 to 0.06; p = 0.600). When adopting January 2021 as time point of interest, we found no difference to the pre-vaccination trend (0.83/1000; 95 %CI: -0.48 to 2.15), and no difference in the pre- and post-vaccination trends (-0.12/1000; 95 %CI: -0.27 to 0.04).
The COVID-19 pandemic and its related social restrictions (lockdown), as well as the COVID-19 national vaccination campaign, had little impact on ED accesses for epileptic seizures.
调查 COVID-19 大流行爆发、相关社会限制措施（全国封锁）和疫苗接种运动对癫痫发作患者急诊就诊的影响。
对意大利梅拉诺综合医院急诊部 2015 年 1 月 1 日至 2021 年 12 月 31 日连续就诊的癫痫患者进行回顾性观察性分析。我们使用数据标准化为每月 1000 人次的中断时间序列分析，调查 COVID-19 大流行和全国封锁（2020 年 3 月）前后期间每月急诊癫痫发作就诊人数。作为进一步的时间截止点，我们使用全国疫苗接种运动的开始时间。
2015 年 1 月 1 日至 2021 年 12 月 31 日期间，共记录了 415005 次急诊就诊，其中 1254 次（0.3%）是由于癫痫发作。在 2020 年 3 月（关注时间点），标准化的癫痫发作急诊就诊率与大流行前趋势没有显著差异（0.33/1000；95%CI：-1.05 至 1.71；p=0.637）。同样，大流行前和大流行后的趋势之间也没有差异（-0.02/1000；95%CI：-0.11 至 0.06；p=0.600）。当采用 2021 年 1 月作为关注时间点时，我们发现与疫苗接种前趋势没有差异（0.83/1000；95%CI：-0.48 至 2.15），疫苗接种前和后趋势也没有差异（-0.12/1000；95%CI：-0.27 至 0.04）。
COVID-19 大流行及其相关社会限制（封锁）以及 COVID-19 全国疫苗接种运动对癫痫发作患者急诊就诊的影响很小。
