The COVID‐19 pandemic first wave in Sweden: A national registry study of the effects on pediatric anesthesia and surgery

BACKGROUND: The Covid-19 pandemic is pushing health care systems to their limits. Dramatic reductions in the adult elective surgery are ubiquitous but corresponding changes in pediatric services are not well described. The Swedish Perioperative Registry (SPOR) contains data on all anesthetic procedures in Sweden, and therefore provides a unique opportunity to analyze the effect of the pandemic on the pediatric anesthesia capacity on a national level. We hypothesized that there would be a significant reduction in pediatric elective procedures. The aim was to determine the effects on pediatric surgical and anesthetic services during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden. METHODS: For this retrospective registry cohort study, we extracted all procedures performed on patients < 18 years of age in 2020 and 2019. Week 12 to 26 of 2020 was defined as the first wave and data was analyzed according to level of care, type of surgery, procedure code and emergency or elective surgery. RESULTS: We found 7015 fewer procedures during the first wave epoch. Elective cases were reduced by 53.7% (p