Inpatient Profile Evaluations Regarding a Pediatric Nephrology Unit Pre-Covid-19 and During

Abstract

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a routine non-clinical course due to primary COVID-19 infection and affected non-COVID patients’ access to healthcare services. This study aims to evaluate the changes in hospitalization diagnoses of patients admitted to a nephrology unit before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The study evaluates the inpatients admitted between March 2018- 2020 and March 2020-2022 in the Nephrology Unit of Izmir Behçet Uz Pediatrics and Surgery Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences. Results: This study includes a total of 1,453 patients. Of these patients, 882 were hospitalized in the pre-COVID period, and 571 were hospitalized during the pandemic. Although a significant difference occurs between genders, no significant differences were found in terms of age and length of stay. The most common diagnoses pre-COVID were urinary tract infections (UTI; 40.1%), nephrotic syndrome (NS; 12.9%), chronic kidney diseases (CKDs; 10.3%), and hypertension (HT; 10%). This order after the pandemic was UTI (35.7%), CKDs (20.8%), NS (10.7%), and HT (10.2%). A significant increase occurred regarding the frequency of CKDs post-pandemic (p = 0.000) and the frequency of hematuria pre-pandemic (p = 0.025). Conclusions: The study is important for being the only study conducted in the field of pediatric nephrology regarding the changes in pandemic hospitalizations. During the pandemic, hospitalizations of chronic patients increased, and hospitalizations of examination patients decreased due to the postponement of elective conditions. What is noteworthy is the decreased incidence of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) and Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP), which are known to trigger nephrotic syndrome and glomerulonephritis. Another remarkable result is the decreased number of patients with recurrent UTIs. Although a decrease did occur in this group, the frequency of UTIs actually increased in general pediatric applications, which led to the emergence of missed diagnoses pre-pandemic.

Keywords

• Pediatric nephrology
• COVID-19 pandemic
• inpatient profile

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