The Impact of the COVID 19 Pandemic on Emergency Department Attendance: What Seems To Be Keeping the Patients Away?

Fatimah Lateef

doi:10.4103/JETS.JETS_133_20

The Impact of the COVID 19 Pandemic on Emergency Department Attendance: What Seems To Be Keeping the Patients Away?

J Emerg Trauma Shock. 2020 Oct-Dec;13(4):246-251. doi: 10.4103/JETS.JETS_133_20. Epub 2020 Dec 7.

Author

Fatimah Lateef^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
² Department of Emergency Medicine, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
³ Department of Emergency Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
⁴ Department of Emergency Medicine, SingHealth Duke NUS Institute of Medical Simulation, Singapore.

Abstract

During outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and COVID 19, many Emergency Departments across the world had a reduction in the general attendance, including the attendance of more serious and critical diagnoses. Here, the author shares the numbers seen at Singapore General Hospital, the largest public hospital in Singapore during the period of February to June 2020. The reduction ranged from 13% to 28% compared to the same period in 2019, before the outbreak. Patient and healthcare system-related factors which may have caused these observations are discussed. The author also puts forth the Behavioral Immune System and Response mechanism as a possible explanation for patients staying away from the hospitals during the outbreak.

Keywords: Behavioral immune system; COVID 19; emergency department attendance.