- Published
- 24 June 2024
- Journal article
Recovery of cardiovascular diagnostic testing in Italy 1 year after coronavirus disease-2019 outbreak compared with other countries in Europe and worldwide: results from the International Atomic Energy Agency INCAPS COVID 2 survey
- Authors
-
- Source
- European Heart Journal - Imaging Methods and Practice
Full text
Abstract
Aims
Recovery of cardiovascular diagnostic testing in Italy after the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has not been quantified. The study aims to describe cardiac diagnostic procedure volumes, centres practice and protocols, and staff members’ well-being 1 year after COVID-19 outbreak in Italy.
Methods and results
A global survey was conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency to evaluate changes in cardiac diagnostic procedure volumes in April 2021. Evaluated procedures were transoesophageal echocardiogram, coronary computed tomography angiography, coronary artery calcium scanning, nuclear medicine infection studies, invasive coronary angiography, rest and stress transthoracic echocardiogram, cardiac magnetic resonance, single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography, and stress electrocardiogram. Data were compared with April 2020 and March 2019. Forty-two Italian centres took part in the survey. In April 2020, there was a 72% decrease of median volumes of cardiac diagnostic procedures compared with March 2019. In April 2021, volumes of cardiac diagnostic procedures remained decreased by 3% when compared with March 2019. Stress electrocardiogram, coronary computed tomography angiography, and stress cardiac magnetic resonance volumes increased in April 2021 compared with baseline (29%, 6%, and 16%, respectively). The majority of centres had adopted physical distancing measures (93%), COVID-19 screening through questionnaires (76%), or temperature checks (93%). Twenty-five per cent of physicians at Italian responding sites reported excessive levels of psychological stress.
Conclusion
In April 2021, volumes of cardiac diagnostic procedures at Italian responding sites were still recovering. Centres had implemented several adaptations to ensure the provision of care to their patients. Even 1 year after the pandemic, a substantial minority of Italian healthcare providers were still experiencing excessive psychological stress.
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
Cite as
Pontone, G., Bremner, L., Del Torto, A., Albano, D., Baritussio, A., Bauckneht, M., Cuocolo, A., Frantellizzi, V., Gatti, M., Gimelli, A., Guglielmo, M., Leccisotti, L., Marcassa, C., Russo, V., Sciagrà, R., Williams, M., Better, N., Cerci, R., Choi, A., Dorbala, S., Hirschfeld, C., Karthikeyan, G., Pascual, T., Shaw, L., Villines, T., Vitola, J., Cohen, Y., Malkovskiy, E., Randazzo, M., Pynda, Y., Dondi, M., Einstein, A. & Paez, D. 2024, 'Recovery of cardiovascular diagnostic testing in Italy 1 year after coronavirus disease-2019 outbreak compared with other countries in Europe and worldwide: results from the International Atomic Energy Agency INCAPS COVID 2 survey', European Heart Journal - Imaging Methods and Practice, 2(1), article no: qyae054. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehjimp/qyae054