Abstract:

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the influence of Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) on the frequency of emergency admissions for ischemic stroke among both young and general populations at a university hospital in Turkey. Methods: An interrupted time series analysis was employed in this study, utilizing retrospectively collected data from the Bezmialem Vakıf University Hospital system. The study included patients who visited the hospital emergency department from May 2019 to February 2023 and were diagnosed with ischemic stroke. Results: 2196 patients with ischemic stroke were admitted to our hospital and 277 of them were young stroke patients. During the pre-pandemic period, there was a noteworthy rise in overall admissions for ischemic stroke (p<0.001); however, no significant change was observed in the rate of admissions for young stroke cases (p>0.05). The COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact on emergency ischemic stroke admissions, leading to a significant decrease in total admission numbers. Upon analyzing the post-COVID-19 period, we observed that COVID-19 did not exert a significant influence on the rate of strokes among the youth population. Conclusion: The hospital admissions of patients with ischemic stroke have been significantly affected by the outcomes of quarantine measures implemented during the COVID-19 period. However, when the analysis of the post-COVID-19 period was conducted using interrupted time series analysis, a significant impact of COVID-19 on the admissions of young patients with ischemic stroke was not observed.