BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been continuing its global spread ever since it’s onset and efforts to curb the infection in multiple reports have contrasting effects on stroke severity, admissions and outcomes. In the Philippines, where the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of slowing down and has been in the world’s longest lockdown, we investigated the effect of the pandemic in the stroke admissions and outcomes in one of the largest tertiary hospitals in the Philippines. METHODS: This is a retrospective, comparative study of all adult stroke patients admitted between Pre-COVID (February 2019-January 2020) and COVID period (February 2020-January 2021). The differences of stroke types, severity, classification, and discharge outcomes between pre-COVID and during COVID was analyzed in the study. RESULTS: There is a decrease in total number of stroke admissions from 597 in the pre-COVID period to 487 during the pandemic. Stroke patients take significantly longer time to seek hospital consultation from onset of stroke symptoms and significantly higher proportion of patients have moderate and severe stroke. The discharge outcome showed significantly higher proportions of dependency upon discharge (13%) and higher proportion of death in stroke patients from 7% pre-COVID19 pandemic to 13% during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: There was reduction in total stroke admissions, mild and transient stroke during the pandemic. There was significantly higher proportion of stroke patients having moderate and severe stroke. The discharge outcome of stroke patients is functionally poorer during the pandemic and more stroke patients have died compared to before COVID-19 pandemic. keywords: Stroke, Philippines, COVID-19, acute stroke


中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 大流行对菲律宾三级医院急性中风入院和结局的影响

背景和目的：自 2019 年冠状病毒 (COVID-19) 大流行以来，它一直在全球蔓延，多份报告中遏制感染的努力对中风严重程度、入院率和结果产生了不同的影响。在菲律宾，COVID-19 大流行没有放缓的迹象，并且一直处于世界上最长的封锁状态，我们在菲律宾最大的三级医院之一调查了大流行对中风入院和结局的影响。方法：这是一项回顾性比较研究，对 COVID 前（2019 年 2 月至 2020 年 1 月）和 COVID 时期（2020 年 2 月至 2021 年 1 月）之间入院的所有成年卒中患者进行了对比研究。该研究分析了 COVID 前和 COVID 期间中风类型、严重程度、分类和出院结果的差异。结果：中风入院总数从 COVID 之前的 597 人减少到大流行期间的 487 人。中风患者从出现中风症状到就诊的时间显着延长，中重度中风的患者比例显着增加。出院结果显示，中风患者的出院依赖比例（13%）和死亡比例显着增加，从 COVID19 大流行前的 7% 增加到大流行期间的 13%。结论：在大流行期间，总中风入院率、轻度和短暂性中风有所减少。患有中度和重度卒中的卒中患者比例显着增加。与 COVID-19 大流行之前相比，大流行期间中风患者的出院结果在功能上更差，并且更多的中风患者死亡。关键词：中风，菲律宾，COVID-19，急性中风