Dados do Trabalho

Título

Changes in stroke hospitalization epidemiology during pandemics in Brazil

Resumo

Introduction:
According to the literature it is possible to elencate 3 main alterations caused by pandemic on stroke epidemiology: possibility of stroke as a complication of COVID-19, decreased number of admission of stroke patients and difficulties to maintain full range of stroke treatment services in periods of worsening in the pandemic scenario.
These alterations were seen in most brazilian services, but there are some particularities of the stroke epidemiology on pandemics in the country that remain in need of investigation.

Objective:
This study aims to understand epidemiology of stroke hospitalizations in Brazil before and during pandemics and compare it with the global findings.

Methods:
This is an ecological time series study, which used the Health Information System database (TABNET), made available by the Department of Informatics of the Unified Health System (DATASUS). In the SUS Hospital Information System (SIH/SUS), information about hospitalizations due to stroke were collected in two periods of time, the first (pre-pandemics) ranging from november 2017 to january 2020 and the second (during pandemics), from february 2020 to april 2022. The data were divided by brazilian region and transferred for the software “Microsoft Excel” to be quantitatively analyzed.

Results:
A reduction of 9463 (3,4%) strokes was noticided when comparing the 2 years and 2 months pre-covid period with the pandemic period, confirming the global tendency of less internations.
Another finding was that the average hospitalization time decreased from 7,13 days, with a standard deviation (SD) of 0,51, in pre-covid to 6,83 days, with a SD of 0,43, currently. Before pandemics the linear trendline already shows a slightly decreasing tendency (R^2=0,27) that became even lower (R^2=0,12), but it is still decreasing in pandemics.
The lowest hospitalizations time averages (6,2 and 6,7 days) happened simultaneously to the peaks of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in march and april of 2020 and 2021.

Conclusion:
COVID-19 pandemics altered the epidemiology of hospitalizations due to stroke in Brazil. The ideal post-stroke hospitalization time is still unclear, but the reasons for this tendency of decreasing this time in pandemics can be seen as an effort to remove the patient’s from hospital as quickly as possible due to the risk of contracting COVID-19. Although, it is not clear if this tendency, benefits patients, therefore more studies are needed to clarify this point.

Palavras Chave

Stroke; hospitalization; neuroepidemiology