The Impact of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Outbreak on Trends in Emergency Department Utilization Patterns

Paek, So Hyun; Kim, Do Kyun; Lee, Jin Hee; Kwak, Young Ho

Previous study showed an increase in the number of ED visits during an epidemic of a respiratory infection similar to MERS (i.e., H1N1 outbreak) (9, (20) (21) (22) . In that study, the number of pediatric ED patients suddenly increased by 19.7% during the H1N1 outbreak in comparison to an increase of 1% in adult patients (9) . This sudden increase in the use of EDs was caused by a fear of the flu in which the media played a major role. Rubinson et al. (21) also showed that there was a 31% increase in the number of ED patients during the H1N1 epidemic. In 1987, during a Approximately 25%-30% of the patients who visit the ED are trauma patients, and the severity of trauma patients requiring hospitalization is greater in adults than in children (18) . During the MERS outbreak period, the proportion of non-trauma patients who visited the adult ED increased by 1.4%, whereas the percentage of trauma patients increased by 4.1% in the pediatric ED. This is thought that pediatric or adolescent trauma patients could not be easily treated in primary medical institutions in Korea.