Mal uso del servicio de emergencia pediátrica y lecciones de la pandemia de COVID-19 en Perú

Introduction: Covid-19 Pandemic could have impacted the perception and visits to the Pediatric Emergency Services. Objective: To describe the variation of non-urgent visits to the Pediatric Emergency Services before, during and after Covid 19 Pandemic, according to the priority category. Methods: A transversal retrospective study was carried out using the data base of Hospital de Emergencias Pediátricas in Lima, Perú, from April 2019 to 2023. Four stages were stablished: pre pandemic, pandemic-stage 1, pandemic-stage 2 y post pandemic. The principal variable was the level of priority: major emergency, emergency, major urgency, minor urgency and non-urgency. Results: One hundred forty-eight thousand two hundred ninety-seven assists were registered; 55.4% of them were male. The most common conditions were clinical abnormalities (28.7%), respiratory problems (24.2%), and infectious/parasitic problems (21.3%). Major emergencies represented 78%. There was an increase in minor emergencies from 5% in the pre-pandemic period to 27.7% in the post-pandemic period. The majority of these minor emergencies or non-emergencies (73.4%) took place during the week and during daylight hours. Conclusions: Strategies must be established to prevent overloading of the Emergency Service with health problems that can be treated in an outpatient consultation, and to standardize the definitions of non-urgent visits.