The evaluation of accesses for febrile and afebrile seizures in the pediatric emergency department during COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

We aimed to evaluate the admissions to the Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) due to seizures one year before and one year after the first COVID-19 case in Turkey. We divided the admission time into two: The prelockdown period (March 2019-February 2020) and the lockdown period (March 2020 – February 2021). We divided the seizures into six parts: First simple febrile convulsion (FK), first complex FK, recurrent simple FK, recurrent complex FK, first non-febrile seizure, and recurrent non-febrile seizure. We compared the prelockdown and lockdown periods in terms of demographic and clinical characteristics and monthly admission of patients. The total number of patients admitted to PED was 37.323 and 10.191 during the prelockdown and lockdown period, respectively. While seizure-related PED accesses were 918 during the prelockdown period, 508 patients were admitted to PED during the lockdown period. Monthly average admissions decreased in all seizure types during the lockdown period. The ratio of first simple febrile seizures to total seizures decreased from 22.4% (206/918) to 16.3% (83/508), while the ratio of first afebrile seizures to total seizures increased from 29.6% (272/918) to 36.8% (186/508). While the rate of first febrile seizures decreased, we observed a significant increase in the rate of first afebrile seizures. The findings suggested that risk factors such as depression/anxiety or screen exposure may have caused seizures in patients with a predisposition to seizures.