The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Urological Outpatient Patients

Abstract

Aim: This study aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients' admission to the urology outpatient clinic. It aims to evaluate changes in the frequency and distribution of diagnosed diseases. Material and Methods: Our study retrospectively examined patient records at the Mersin University Hospital Urology Clinic. The study period covers September 11, 2018, to September 11, 2021. Patient information, International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes, age groups, and examination dates were obtained from the patient's files. Data of patients with duplicate records were not included in the study. Each code was analyzed as a separate data point for patients with multiple diagnosis codes. Results: Following the detection of the pandemic in our country, a decrease of 12.52% in patient admissions to our urology clinic was observed during the 540 days. Furthermore, a significant reduction of 27.08% in newly diagnosed urology cases was identified. This decrease was observed across all disease groups except oncological diseases when overall admissions were evaluated. The general urology and andrology categories also followed a similar decrease in newly diagnosed cases. However, an increase in patient admissions was noted in the 25-34 and 35-54 age groups (p