Diagnostic Evaluation of Children Presenting with Chest Pain to Pediatric Cardiology Clinic: Covid-19 Pandemic's Effect to Etiology

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the etiology of chest pains and demographic data of these patients, and to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on these variables. Material and Methods: The study included patients who presented with complaints of chest pain at the Paediatric Cardiology Clinic between November 2019 and August 2020. The patients were separated into two groups from the date of when restrictions to daily life were implemented because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, as Group 1 who presented before March 2020, and Group 2 who presented after March 2020. Results: Evaluation was made of a total of 251 patients comprising 136 (54.2%) females and 115 (45.8%) males with a mean age of 11.6 ± 2.9 years. The chest pain was felt most often in the precordial area (46.2%) as a needle pricking (64.9%). The cause of the chest pain was determined to be the musculoskeletal system (55%), psychogenic (16.3%) and idiopathic (13.5%) respectively. A cardiac reason was determined in 2.8% of the patients. In the comparisons of the two groups, psychogenic reasons were seen more in Group 2 after the pandemic, and more patients had been referred by a physician and from rural areas (p<0.05). Conclusion: To prevent repeated polyclinic presentations with non-cardiac chest pain, and unnecessary and lengthy tests, the concerns of families must be eliminated. After the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was determined to be an increase in children with chest pains of psychogenic cause