Publication date: Jul 22, 2025
A systematic analysis of how essential surgery developed worldwide throughout the COVID-19 pandemic remains absent. This scoping review aims to define essential surgery by comparing definitions between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries during COVID-19. We conducted a scoping review of Ovid, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases for articles published January 2020 to December 2022 that defined essential surgery during COVID-19. Articles referencing pediatric populations or exclusively elective surgery were excluded. This review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42024495318). Articles were categorized by country income status, surgical specialty, and methodology. Procedures were classified into 8 surgical systems (neurosurgery, breast/gynecology, etc) and deemed to have strong (≥75%), moderate (50-74%), or limited (
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Crd42024495318 | Absent |
| December | Countries |
| Income | Covid |
| Pandemic | Crisis |
| Surgery | Developed |
| Essential | |
| Global | |
| Income | |
| Pandemic | |
| Prioritization | |
| Remains | |
| Scoping | |
| Surgery | |
| Surgical | |
| Systematic |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | IDO | country |