engleski

Lockdown clear-out? - Incidence of euthanasia at Clinic for internal diseases at Faculty of veterinary medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia, during lockdown in 2020

The “Christmas clear-out” is well known term in veterinary medicine which describes an increased number of cases of euthanasia during the Christmas period. The similar situation may have happened during the lockdown due to pandemic of coronavirus when there was significant decline in majority of veterinary procedures. In order to investigate incidence of euthanasia during the lockdown, first we have compared data on all dogs treated at Clinic for Internal Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine during 2020 and 2019 (considering it as any other “normal” year) analysing number of admitted dogs, number and percentage of euthanasia in relation to admissions. Furthermore, in order to minimise errors, we have compared month by month separately between two years. Finally, we have extracted data from first, most strict lockdown (between 21st March and 15th May 2020) and compared them with data from the same period in 2019. We have analysed all the data using chi-squared test with p < 0.01 considered as statistically significant. There was no significant difference in the number of admissions as well as in the number of cases of euthanasia in 2020 (2584 ; 168) compared to 2019 (2930 ; 236), but the percentage of euthanasia was significantly lower in 2020 (6.5%) compared to 2019 (8.1%). Monthly analysis showed the significantly higher percentage of euthanasia in April (11.4:5.4) and significantly lower percentage in March (6.2:10.0), May (4.0:10.9), June (4.9:10.5) and October (3.3:7.5). During the lockdown there was significantly lower number of admissions (206:436) and sadly, our hypothesis that there might be a higher number of cases of euthanasia during lockdown was confirmed regarding the number and percentage of cases of euthanasia (21 ; 10.2%) compared to same period in 2019 (40 ; 9.2%). In conclusion, our results showed that there was a “lockdown clear- out” which could be attributed to COVID-related reasons (stress, anxiety, health, finances, transport, strict clinic admission policy) potentially exacerbated with simultaneous earthquake.

lockdown ; clear-out ; euthanasia incidence ; dog

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