Abstract
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemics has caused millions of deaths worldwide, has increased the demand for in-hospital beds and has affected in-hospital activities of "non-respiratory patients." There is currently no known effect of the pandemic on the emergency urological care in our region. This study aims to estimate the first – wave COVID-19 pandemics effect on emergency urological care in four tertiary Colombian hospitals.
 Material and methods: A cross-sectional retrospective multicenter study were made. The emergency urological care activities between April – May 2019 and April – May 2020 were compared. We calculated descriptive statistics and assessed differences during the study periods. We used Stata 13.0.
 Results: 1570 patients were included. There was a 22.20% decrease in the number of patients who visited the emergency room (ER) for urological disease during the pandemic's initial phase. Urolithiasis and urological infectious were the most common reasons for consulting in the ER. there was a significant decrease in ER visits caused by acute urinary retention (p: 0.001). The surgical index for patients who required emergency urological care had a increase of 10.74% (p: 0.0001). There was a decrease of 0.74 days in hospital stay for patients who required urological emergency care in the initial COVID-19 pandemic period.
 Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on emergency and elective urological care worldwide. During the initial phase of this emergency there was a significant decreased in hospital admission due to urological diseases (including acute urinary retention) and average hospital stays due to urological emergencies in Colombia, however, the surgical index for critical urological diseases increased by 10.74%. According to the pandemics dynamics, a greater effect on urological care is expected.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemics has caused millions of deaths worldwide, has increased the demand for in-hospital beds and has affected in-hospital activities of “non-respiratory patients.” There is currently no known effect of the pandemic on the emergency urological care in our region
During the initial phase of this emergency, there was a significant decreased in hospital admission and average hospital stays due to urological emergencies in Colombia, the surgical index for critical urological diseases increased by 10.74%
Up to two-thirds of major urological surgery could be safely postponed in Italy until the crisis generated by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had resolved.[11]There was an overall decrease of 55% in urological emergency consultation.[12]. In Germany, 77.9% of urologists stated that they had more significant restrictions in their surgical practice, and 9.4% had a total cessation of their surgical activity due to the SARSCoV-2 pandemic.[13]. In Portugal, Madanelo et al,(14) described an overall decrease of 46.4% in urological emergency room (ER) consultation between March and april/2019 compared to March–april/2020
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemics has caused millions of deaths worldwide, has increased the demand for in-hospital beds and has affected in-hospital activities of “non-respiratory patients.” There is currently no known effect of the pandemic on the emergency urological care in our region. This study aims to estimate the first – wave COVID-19 pandemics effect on emergency urological care in four tertiary Colombian hospitals. There was a 22.20% decrease in the number of patients who visited the emergency room (ER) for urological disease during the pandemic’s initial phase. The surgical index for patients who required emergency urological care had a increase of 10.74% (p: 0.0001). There was a decrease of 0.74 days in hospital stay for patients who required urological emergency care in the initial COVID-19 pandemic period. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on emergency and elective urological care worldwide. During the initial phase of this emergency, there was a significant decreased in hospital admission and average hospital stays due to urological emergencies in Colombia, the surgical index for critical urological diseases increased by 10.74%. According to the pandemics dynamics, a greater effect on urological care is expected
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