Impact of COVID-19 on endourology surgical practice in Saudi Arabia: A national multicenter study

Abstract Objective To identify the impact of COVID-19 on endourology surgical practice in Saudi Arabia. Methods A retrospective study of seven tertiary hospitals from January 2019 to April 2019, and from January 2020 to April 2020 was performed. Records of urology outpatient department (OPD) visits and endourology procedures in the first third of 2020 were analyzed and compared with those in the first third of 2019, as well as, during the full curfew time, i.e. April 2020 versus April 2019. Results Number of OPD visits in the first third of 2020 and 2019 were 19,499 and 26,594, respectively (p  Conclusion During COVID-19 pandemic, urology services slashed by >75%, including OPD visits and elective endourology procedures. Most hospitals have changed their strategic preventive measures by increasing the rate of teleclinics and day surgeries.