Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Emergency Medical Services

Abstract

Introduction: In this study, we aimed to analyse the changes that occurred after the COVID-19 pandemic using the data of EMS of Ankara province. Materials and methods: EMS data for the same time interval (March 11-April 24) in the last 3 years (2018, 2019 and 2020) were compared. Results: While the number of calls increased by 90.9% during the pandemic period (from 2019 to 2020), the number of cases increased by 9.8%. Of all cases transported to hospital, 15.2% were suspected of and 2.9% were diagnosed with COVID-19. In the pandemic period, case frequency decreased in the 0-6 age group (−4.1%) and 7-18 age group (-39.9%) while the number of patients in the 19-65 age group (12.9%) and 65+ age group (21.5%) increased. There was a statistically significant difference between pre-pandemic and pandemic period in terms of rural area case frequency. During the pandemic period, case frequency of angina pectoris (−35.2%), myocardial infarction (−45%), acute abdomen (−23.8%) and cerebrovascular diseases (−2.9%) decreased contrary to pre-pandemic period (2019). During the same period, symptoms of fever (+14.1%) and cough (+956.3%) increased. There was a statistically significant difference between pre-pandemic and pandemic period in terms of forensic case frequency (P