COVID-19的防疫相關政策與小兒科急診的醫療使用

COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention Related Policy and Medical Use in Pediatric Emergency

新型冠狀病毒（SARS-CoV-2）爆發於2019年，並於2020年擴散至全球。世界衛生組織公布為公共衛生緊急事件，並命名為2019冠狀病毒病（COVID-19）。我國疫情指揮中心採取防疫政策及滾動式醫療策略。研究探討台灣COVID-19相關防疫政策，是否影響兒科急診的醫療使用情形，收集2020年至2021年間某醫學中心兒科急診的就醫資料。在此期間全球疫情爆發，台灣也正處於疫情期間，並回溯2019年疫情前同期資料作為比較。本研究利用差異中的差異法，進行實證分析，評估政策實施前後的變化，以探討事件或政策所帶來的影響。結果顯示防疫政策實施後，確實使季節性感染疾病大幅下降，兒科急診就診人數明顯減少，顯示防疫政策對於預防其他感染性疾病，亦具正面效果。

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in 2019 and spread to the world in 2020. The World Health Organization declared Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) a public health emergency. The epidemic control policies of Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) in Taiwan were under scroll adjustment. This study explored whether Taiwan's COVID-19 related epidemic prevention policies affect the medical utilization of pediatric emergency departments, and collected medical treatment data on pediatric emergency rooms in a medical center from 2020 to 2021. During this period, the global epidemic broke out, and Taiwan was also in the midst of the epidemic. The data for the same period before the epidemic in 2019 was reviewed for comparison. This study used the difference-in-difference method to conduct empirical analysis and evaluated changes before and after policy implementation to explore the impact of events or policies. The results showed that after the implementation of the epidemic prevention policy, seasonal infectious diseases had indeed dropped significantly, and the number of pediatric emergency department visits had been significantly reduced, indicating that the epidemic prevention policy also had a positive effect on preventing other infectious diseases.