• Arantxa Albert, Javier Jacob, Pierre Malchair, Ferrán Llopis, Lidia Fuentes, Cristina Martín, Cristina García, Orlando Rodríguez, José Carlos Ruibal, Concepción Martínez, Elena Fuentes, Marco Cordero, Lara... more Guillén, Francisco Chamorro, Sebastián Quetglas, and Carles Ferre. less
• Servei d'Urgències Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, Barcelona, España.
• Emergencias. 2022 Feb 1; 34 (1): 38-46.

ObjectivesTo analyze the frequencies of 3 types of hospital revisits by patients after treatment for COVID-19 in the emergency department.Material And MethodsRetrospective observational study of consecutive patients who came to the emergency department in March and April 2020 and were discharged alive with a diagnosis of COVID-19. Baseline and acute episode data were collected and the patients were followed for 1 year. We analyzed variables associated with revisits for any reason, revisits related to COVID-19, and early COVID-19-related revisits (within 30 days).ResultsA total of 1352 patients with a mean age of 62.1 years (52.9% male) were studied. A total of 553 revisits were made by 342 patients (25.3%) for any reason; 132 (9.8%) revisited in relation to COVID-19 at least once. Of those, 103 (7.6%) revisited within 30 days (early) and 29 (2.2%) came later. COVID-19-related revisits were associated with thrombotic events (odds ratio [OR], 7.58; 95% CI, 1.75-32.81) and pulmonary fibrosis (OR, 4.95; 95% CI, 1.27-19.24); early revisits were inversely associated with follow-up management by a contracted health care support service (OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.03-0.92). Hospital admission during the initial visit was significantly associated with fewer revisits for any reason or related to COVID-19 at any time.ConclusionFewer than half the total number of emergency department revisits after initial care for COVID-19 were related to the novel coronavirus infection. Revisits occurred more often in the first 30 days after discharge. Later COVID-19-related revisits were uncommon, but given the large number of patients with this infection, such visits can be expected.

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