Unscheduled revisits to emergency departments (EDs) are important because they indicate the quality of emergency care. However, the characteristics of pediatric patients visiting EDs changed during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and these changes may have affected their revisit patterns. Therefore, we aimed to compare the ED revisit patterns of pediatric patients between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods. This retrospective multicenter study included patients aged below 18 years who visited the ED in the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods. ED revisit rates were analyzed using five age groups and three visit-revisit intervals. In the pre-COVID-19 period, the revisit rates decreased with increasing age. In the COVID-19 period, the revisit rates were the lowest for the group aged 4-6 years, and the rates increased for those aged ≥7 years. In conclusion, there were changes in the patterns of revisit rates of pediatric patients according to age between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the reasons for revisits according to age and establish strategies to reduce the revisit rates of pediatric patients.
Keywords: COVID-19; pediatric patients; revisit to emergency department.