Muhamad, Siti Aqilah (2022) The pattern of non-covid paediatric admissions in two university hospitals in Malaysia: before and during the covid-19 pandemic with movement control order. Masters thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
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Abstract
Introduction: A novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 was discovered in December 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China which led to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The outbreak of this disease has caused major impact to the society worldwide. In Malaysia, government had implemented the Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan 2020 (Movement Control Order 2020, MCO) from March 18 until April 14 2020 then subsequently had been extended to August 1 2021 in few phases. The aim of this measure was to reduce new infections and thus flattening the epidemiological curve into a more manageable scenario. The indirect effect of this directive also lead to children not attending school and intermingling with their peers and thus theoretically also leading to reduction of non-COVID infective illnesses and hospital admission. Objective: The goal of the study was to describe the demographic characteristics of patients admitted to non-COVID hospitals which were Hospital USM and Sultan Ahmad Shah Medical Centre (SASMEC@IIUM). Study also aimed to compare the rate of hospital admissions between pre and during MCO periods and to differentiate the characteristics of cases admitted between these two periods. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study involving Hospital USM and SASMEC@IIUM that was conducted in two phases. Phase I was the period between February 19 2020 until March 17 2020 which was the 4 weeks period prior to MCO lockdown. Phase II was the 4 weeks during MCO lockdown (March 18th 2020 until April 14th 2020). It involves all children under 18 years of age who were hospitalised in the general paediatric wards including paediatric surgical ward and Intensive care unit (ICU). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the socio-demographic variables. Independent t-test analysis was applied to compare the rate of admissions per day between pre and during MCO to Hospital USM and SASMEC@IIUM. Chi square test and Mann-Whitney test were applied to compare the characteristics of cases admitted during these two periods. Results: There is a total 496 and 191 admissions to Hospital USM and SASMEC@IIUM respectively during both pre- MCO and MCO period. There were 283 (57.1%) boys and 213 (42.9%) girls admitted to Hospital USM and 105 (55%) boys and 86 (45%) girls admitted to SASMEC@IIUM with Malays as the predominant ethnic. Most admissions to both centres were between the ages of 1-7 years old. There were significant reduction in hospital admissions to both centres after implementation of Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan 2020 (Movement Control Order 2020, MCO) on March 18, 2020. For Hospital USM, the daily hospital admissions has significantly decreased after the implementation of MCO with mean of 10 admissions per day (pre MCO) to 7 admissions per day (during MCO) (95% CI 1.54,7.54, p=0.001). Similarly, daily hospital admissions rate to SASMEC@IIUM also has shown a significant reduction of admission number whereby the average daily admissions of 5 pre MCO has decreased to 3 admissions during MCO period (95% CI 0.61, 3.15, p=0.005). Besides, there were reduction of patients admitted to hospital due to respiratory illnesses observed whereby 196 (45.6%) patients admitted pre MCO and there was a slight reduction of the cases to 112 (43.6%) patients during MCO. Similarly, infectious disease cases also have shown reduction where 29 (6.7%) patients were admitted pre MCO and this has reduced to 15 (5.8%) patients during MCO. Nevertheless, there was a significant reduction of neurological cases (p=0.029) was observed between the two periods. Conclusion: Public health measures social distancing stop the outbreak of COVID-19 cases, and indirectly reducing the non COVID-19 cases. There was a significant reduction of non-COVID paediatric hospital admissions observed in our study, which could potentially be as a consequences of these measures. Thus, the social distancing and good personal hygiene should be continued even though the COVID-19 era has reached endemic status.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | COVID 19, MCO |
| Subjects: | R Medicine R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics |
| Divisions: | Kampus Kesihatan (Health Campus) > Pusat Pengajian Sains Perubatan (School of Medical Sciences) > Thesis |
| Depositing User: | MUHAMMAD AKIF AIMAN AB SHUKOR |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Jul 2026 03:29 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Oct 2026 07:16 |
| URI: | http://eprints.usm.my/id/eprint/64617 |
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