Self-Referred Walk-in (SRW) versus Emergency Medical Services Brought Covid-19 Patients

Objective: To compare the characteristics of the emergency medical services (EMS) brought COVID-19 patients versus self-referred walk-in patients. Methods: This was a Cross-sectional study of COVID-19 infected cases in Jahrom, south of Iran. Age, sex, the symptoms of beginning days’ passing, respiratory distress, PO2 at arrival, admission length and inhospital death were retrieved for confirming COVID-19 cases in the whole 2020 year. Respiratory distress was considered as the sign that agitates the patient to call EMS care. Survival analysis was used to evaluate the possible difference of the hospitalization outcome in EMS brought or Self-referred walk-in (SRW) patients. Results: There was 704 (27.1%) registries patients transfer to the hospital by EMS and 1895 (72.9%) cases with SRW referred to the hospital. The survival distributions for the EMS group were statistically significant and lower than SRW group (p