The impact of lockdown on incidence of neurosurgery trauma patients in India

Abstract

Objective: Covid19 pandemic challenged the global healthcare system and both developed and developing countries responded with their might to fight this global pandemic. Road traffic accidents are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in India and we studied the impact of lockdown on neurosurgery trauma patients in a tertiary care centre in India. Methods: Indian government announced complete lockdown on 25th march 2020 and India remained in complete lockdown till 31st May 2020. We included the patients admitted from 1st January 2020 to 24th March 2020 in pre lockdown period and25th march to  In this cross-sectional study we divided the patients into two groups of pre lockdown and lockdown period and incidence of neurosurgery trauma patients was assessed for Road Traffic Accident, assault, hit by animal and fall from height. Result: In our study 491 patients were admitted in pre lockdown and 369 patients were admitted in lockdown period. Road traffic accident patients were more in pre lockdown 39.5% (n=194) as compared to lockdown period 31.2% (n=115). However, cases of assaults were more in the lockdown period (14.6%, n=54) as compared to pre lockdown (3.9%, n=19). The death rate in neurosurgery trauma patients reduced significantly in lockdown (7.3%, n=27) as compared to pre lockdown (21.8%, n=107). Conclusion: The COVID19 pandemic induced lockdown resulted in a decrease in motor vehicle movements which further decreased the incidence of RTA and related trauma however incidence of assault-related trauma and cases increased significantly in this period. The overall outcome of such patients improved probably due to better utilization of available health care facilities.