Results:
The hospital records show that 1078 patients were admitted to the two tertiary hospitals’ PM&R outpatient clinics in April and May 2020. Of these, 541 (50.2 %) of them were admitted to center A and 537 (49.8%) were admitted to center B. Of the patients who applied to center A, 115 were admitted twice and 18 were three times. The remaining 408 patients applied only once. In Center B, 106 patients applied twice, 25 patients three times, and four patients four times. The remaining 402 patients applied only once (Table 1).
In April, a total of 401 (188 and 213, respectively) and in May 677 (353 and 324, respectively) patients applied (Figure 1 and 2). The age of patients ranges from 0 to 88 with a mean age of 45.4±14.9 (0-88) years (47.2 and 43.1 for women and men, respectively) and there is no statistically significant difference between the two centers in terms of the age of the patients (p=0.863). While most of the admitted patients were between the ages of 40 and 60 years, the number of patients aged< 18 years was the least. Among 1078 patients 606 (56%) were female. In both centers, the number of female patients was higher than that of male patients (Table 1).
The most common reasons for admission were acute peripheral joint pain, follow-up and prescription, acute low back pain, respectively (Table 2). When stratified patients by age, the most common reason of admission was peripheral arthralgia in all ages except < 18 years. In this group, patients were admitted predominantly for follow-up. The most frequent causes of follow-up and prescription were fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain. When the distribution of the affected joints was evaluated, although the most frequently affected joint was shoulder in total, the number of patients with knee and shoulder pain were similar over the age of 60 years (Table 3).
In addition, neuropathic pain was the cause of admission in 54 patients. These patients had a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome (n=14), ulnar nerve entrapment or injury (n=3), other peripheral nerve injury (n=10), polyneuropathy (n=9), zona zoster (n=2), lumbar disc herniation or spinal stenosis (n=14), and cervical disc herniation (n=2). 112 out of 199 patients with low back pain and 56 out of 98 patients with neck pain also had radicular pain.
Of the 1078 patients 893 had a prescription. The most prescribed medication was non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) which were prescribed to a total of 569 patients. This medication is followed by pregabalin (Table 4). As far as the patients who were admitted for prescription and follow-up are concerned, pregabalin and duloxetine were prescribed the most.