OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of the (COVID-19) quarantine on baseline health, medication use, health anxiety, and healthcare utilization in pediatric aerodigestive patients, and to evaluate for associations of commonly prescribed medications with risk of COVID-19 illness. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective study of patients presenting in-person to pediatric neurogastroenterology clinics between July 2020 and March 2021. RESULTS: Of 202 recruited patients, 71.3% were seen in aerodigestive diseases center and 28.7% in the Functional Abdominal Pain (FAP)/Motility clinic. Of all patients, 25.1% reported improved overall health during quarantine; ADC patients (35.3%) report improved overall health compared with the FAP/Motility patients (3.6%, p=0.0001). ADC patients had less airway symptoms (p<0.05) and less medication use during quarantine (inhaled steroids, p<0.05 and albuterol, p<0.05). Despite objective improvement, there was significant health related anxiety with higher anxiety scores reported during and at the end of quarantine (p<0.05), with no difference between patient groups (p>0.11). Patients continued to access healthcare during quarantine. 28.7% of patients were seen in the emergency room (FAP patients more than ADC patients, p =0.02) and 19.8% were hospitalized. COVID-19 testing was performed in 58.4% of patients and 2.0% (n=4) of the entire cohort tested positive. CONCLUSION: ADC patients show improvement of airway symptoms and decreased use of medications during the pandemic, despite increased health-related anxiety. Despite complexities of accessing care due to the widespread lockdown, all patient groups continued to access healthcare.
IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 on THE PEDIATRIC AERODIGESTIVE POPULATION