ArticleVaccines2022
COVID-19 Impact on Australian Patients with Substance Use Disorders: Emergency Department Admissions in Western Sydney before Vaccine Roll Out.
Article in Vaccines, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Excess Alcohol-Induced Hospitalisations and Deaths During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Changes in Drug-Induced Hospitalisations and Deaths During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Recognising the heterogeneity of Indigenous Peoples during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review across Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- Telehealth Use and Legal Considerations in Drug Health Services During Pandemics: Systematic Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Patients languishing in emergency departments: A descriptive analysis of mental health-related emergency department presentations in Australia between 2016-17 and 2020-21.Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists · 2023Article
- The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug and poison-related deaths in Gold Coast, Australia.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: In this study, we determined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Western Sydney patients with substance use disorders (SUD) by comparing emergency department (ED) admission rates before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and before the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination. Methods: ED admission data for patients with SUD were retrieved from the local electronic medical record (eMR) on the hospital central database. ED data collected from 25 January to 25 July 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) were compared with data from 25 January to 25 July 2020 (early pandemic). ED admission reasons were categorised based on the presenting complaints and ED diagnoses. Results: Despite an overall reduction in ED admissions during the early pandemic, compared to the pre-pandemic period, admissions for patients with SUD increased significantly (1.7% to 3.4%, p < 0.01). ED admission rates related to infection (0.05% to 0.12%, p < 0.01), local infection (0.02% to 0.05%, p < 0.01), trauma (0.06% to 0.12%, p < 0.01), alcohol (0.01% to 0.03%, p < 0.05), and other issues (0.06% to 0.10%, p < 0.05) increased significantly among Indigenous patients with SUD. ED admission rates related to drugs (0.12% to 0.39%, p < 0.01), infection (0.21% to 0.34%, p < 0.01), local infection (0.07% to 0.18%, p < 0.01), gastrointestinal (0.15% to 0.23%, p < 0.05), trauma (0.14% to 0.25%, p < 0.01), alcohol (0.36% to 0.74%, p < 0.01), and ‘other’ issues (0.47% to 0.91%, p < 0.01) increased significantly among non-Indigenous patients with SUD. Four cases of COVID-19 were reported among these patients. Conclusions: There was an increase in ED admissions for patients with SUD in the initial six months of the COVID-19 pandemic (before vaccine rollout), mainly for drugs, systemic infection, local infection, trauma, and alcohol-related reasons. Now that most people in New South Wales have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a further study is needed to quantify the effect of the pandemic on patients with SUD in the post-vaccine era.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.