Effects of the pandemic on forensic cases

During Covid 19 Pandemic, crime rates in society have decreased from various parts of the world with social isolation measures and quarantine practices. With the curfews, traffic accidents are decreasing in the world and in our country, on the other hand, there are studies showing that there is an increase in events such as home accidents, domestic violence and abuse due to domestic isolation. The fact that there is not enough research on this subject in our country has led us to think about how the pandemic affects the rate of judicial applications. Cases who applied to the emergency department as forensic cases in the computer registry system of Gaziantep University Faculty of Medicine Şahinbey Research and Application Hospital were examined retrospectively. Differences in the number and contents of forensic cases during pandemic period (Pediod II) between 11.03.2020- 10.03.2021 and before the pandemic period (Period I) between 11.03.2019 and 10.03.2020 were compared. The number of forensic case applications in period I is 3384 and in period II is 2425. In both periods, the most common type of incident was traffic accident (40.76%), while the least rate was burns (0.36%). The incidents occurred mostly on weekdays (69.59%) when there was no curfew (81.94%). When the genders between the periods are compared, there was a significant increase in male gender applications in Period II compared to Period I (69.15%; 65.16%; respectively), while a significant decrease was observed in female gender applications (30.85%; 34%, 34%, respectively). 84; respectively) (p:0.001). In Period II, which is the pandemic process, the most common reason for application in male gender was traffic accident, and the most common application was violence in female gender (p:0.001). In the literature, the change in the understanding of hospital use at the beginning of the pandemic has been attributed to many factors; Some of these are: the fear of getting infected, the change in the frequency of hospital use as a result of the restriction of the access of elderly individuals to their family relatives, the implementation of curfews, the decrease in the use of the emergency service in nonemergency situations. As the effect of restriction of movement on the psychology of the general population during the pandemic process, many studies and our study support the opinion that the number of forensic cases, especially violence, work accident, suicide attempt, sharp-piercing injury and firearm injury, and the increase in assault and suicide attempts, especially in women. Key Words: Initimate Partner Violence, COVİD-19, Emergency Medicine, Domestic Violence, Lockdown v