Wongtanasarasin W, Phinyo P. Emergency department visits and hospital admissions in kidney transplant recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic: A hospital-based study. World J Transplant 2022; 12(8): 250-258 [PMID: 36159077 DOI: 10.5500/wjt.v12.i8.250]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Wachira Wongtanasarasin, MD, Attending Doctor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, 110 Intavarorot Street, Sriphum, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand. wachir_w@hotmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Emergency Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Cohort Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Transplant. Aug 18, 2022; 12(8): 250-258 Published online Aug 18, 2022. 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, Phichayut Phinyo
Wachira Wongtanasarasin, Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Wachira Wongtanasarasin, Department of Emergency Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA 95817, United States
Phichayut Phinyo, Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Phichayut Phinyo, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Clinical Statistics, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Author contributions: Wongtanasarasin W and Phinyo P designed the protocol, contributed to data collection, and data analyses; Wongtanasarasin W contributed to the formal analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; and all authors read and critically reviewed the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University (EXEMPTION-8745/65).
Informed consent statement: The Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University waived informed consent due to its retrospective design.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE-Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE-Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wachira Wongtanasarasin, MD, Attending Doctor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, 110 Intavarorot Street, Sriphum, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand. wachir_w@hotmail.com
Received: January 28, 2022 Peer-review started: January 28, 2022 First decision: March 25, 2022 Revised: March 27, 2022 Accepted: July 25, 2022 Article in press: July 25, 2022 Published online: August 18, 2022 Processing time: 201 Days and 18.2 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Several investigations have shown that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has an impact on daily life and the healthcare system.
Research motivation
There has been no previous research on the effects of COVID-19 on emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations among kidney transplant (KT) patients. We conducted this study to explore the effects of COVID-19 on ED visits among post-KT recipients.
Research objectives
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ED visits and hospital admissions within 1 year in patients who underwent KT in Thailand.
Research methods
We conducted a retrospective study. We reviewed hospital records of KT patients who visited ED during the outbreak of COVID-19. We used the previous 2 years as the control period in the analysis. We obtained baseline demographics and ED visit characteristics of each KT patient. The outcomes of interest were ED visits and ED visits leading to hospital admission within the 1st year following a KT.
Research results
We included a total of 263 patients: 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. The hospital admission rate was also similar between periods.
Research conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic had no effect on KT recipients’ ED visits or hospital admissions in the 1st year after transplantations.
Research perspectives
Despite these findings, we suggest that communication between post-KT patients and healthcare professionals is crucial in emphasizing the significance of timely ED visits for acute health issues, especially in post-KT patients.
