EFFECTS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE TRAUMA POPULATION IN A LEVEL 1 TRAUMA CENTER

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the pandemic in our trauma population before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic. Additionally, using geospatial mapping, we wanted to determine if there was a link to the rise in violent trauma in our trauma population and the start of the pandemic.

Methods: This is a retrospective review of the trauma patients in a single level 1 trauma center. We reviewed the trauma registry and compared various parameters in the two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2018 -December 2019) and the two years during the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020–Dec 2021). We evaluated age, race, gender, injury severity score (ISS), mechanism of trauma, rate of self-inflicted injury, rate of gunshot wounds (GSW), presence of ETOH, drug screen results, and zip code of residence. Secondary outcomes evaluated included mortality and rate of burns.

Results: A query of our trauma registry during the study period captured 5051 patients in the pre-COVID group and 5720 during the COVID-19 pandemic. On manual review of these charts, 4 patients were excluded from the pre-COVID data group, and 11 patients were excluded from the COVID-19 data group due to outlying or unknown mechanism of injury. We found no statistical difference in the age (p-value 0.3623), gender (p-value 0.8203), mechanism of trauma (p-value 0.9386), and rate of self-inflicted injuries (p-value 0.7976) of the trauma patients during the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to pre-COVID. There were statistically significant differences when comparing patients during the COVID-19 pandemic to those in the pre-COVID group in ISS (p-value = < 0.0001), race (p-value 0.0327), rate of GSW (p-value 0.0352), ETOH use (p-value < 0.0001), and illicit drug use (p-value < 0.0001). The results of our geospatial mapping found a rise in GSWs for zip code 36606 (p value 0.0451). For the secondary outcomes, we found a statistical significance in the rate of burns with a lower burn patient volume during COVID when compared to the burn activations pre-COVID-19 (p-value < 0.0001). Regarding mortality we did not see any statistical significance between pre-COVID and during COVID-19 (p-value 0.2092).

Conclusion: Gun violence and substance abuse rose significantly in our trauma population during COVID-19 and may have been interrelated. Although healthcare providers are now seeing the effects of COVID-19 on patient care, there remain aspects of the burdens of COVID-19 that need to be further elucidated.