The Effect of Football Derbies on Emergency Department Visits: Evidence from Turkey, 2024

We aimed to investigate the effects of football derbies in Turkey on emergency department (ED) visits.

We retrospectively analyzed patients who visited the ED of a training and research hospital in Turkey between January 1 and December 31, 2024. We evaluated four football derby days and four normal weekend days for comparison. We defined three time periods: 6 h before match start, 2 h during the match, and 12 h after the match. We recorded patients' demographic and clinical information and classified ED visit diagnoses into 6 main categories.

We included 8,353 ED visits (4,207 normal days; 4,146 derby days). We found a statistically significant difference in visit distribution between derby days and normal days according to diagnosis categories (p < 0.001). Despite a 1.45% decrease in total visits on derby days, we observed a disproportionate increase in trauma and other external cause diagnoses (a 4.5% increase), respiratory system diseases (an 8.4% increase), and cardiovascular diseases (a 1.8% increase). Being a derby day increased the probability of trauma diagnoses by 29.7% (p < 0.001). Increasing age reduced this probability by 0.6%, being female reduced it by 12%, and pre-match time period increased it by 33% (p < 0.05 for all). We observed a 6% increase in trauma-related visits among women on derby days (p = 0.010).

Football derby matches affect ED visit patterns, particularly trauma diagnoses, respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular diseases. The increase in trauma diagnoses relates to the presence or absence of derby, time period, gender, and age. Women's trauma-related visits increased on derby days. We recommend considering these findings in ED resource planning and public health policies.