Evaluation of the effect of long public holidays on emergencydepartment patient admissions and outcomes

Long public holidays can reduce patient admissions and the quality of medical care due to emergency department (ED) overcrowding. We aimed to investigate the effects of long holidays on ED patient visits, profiles, and outcomes. The study was planned as four periods, including the 5-day Ramadan Feast (RF) Holiday, the 9-day Eid al-Adha (EA) Holiday and periods without a holiday in 2022. It was used the chi-square test or Fisher test for comparing categorical variables, the independent group t-test for variables with parametric distribution between groups and Mann Whitney U test for variables without parametric distribution. The number of patients who applied to the ED in RF, nonholiday period for RF, EA, non-holiday period for EA was 790, 746, 1616, 1540, who admitted to ED was 681, 621,1346,1330, respectively. There was a 5.89% increase in ED visits during the RF Holiday compared to the non-holiday period and a 4.93% increase during the EA Holiday compared to the non-holiday period. During the RF Holiday, there was a decrease in imaging requests and 'urgent' patients compared to the non-holiday period. During the EA Holiday, ED visits between 19:00-07:59 hours, urgent patients, laboratory, imaging and consultation requests, length of stays in ED decreased and 'non-urgent' patient visits increased compared to the non-holiday period. The number of critical and very urgent patient visits, laboratory test, consultation, intensive care admissions and deaths in the ED and the length of stay in the ED decreased and the number of the non-urgent patient visits and discharge from the ED increased during the EA Holiday compared to the RF Holiday. The increase in non-urgent patient visits as the holiday period extends indicates that centers other than ED that provide health care should be planned for patients in this category during long holiday periods.