Demographic properties of patients presenting to the emergency department in Turkey

Abstract

Introduction: To provide high quality emergency medical care, we need to assess the management of patients through precise patient data documentation and data collecting systems. The aim of this study is to evaluate the demographic properties of the patients presenting to the emergency department and to constitute a preliminary study to improve quality of emergency medical system through a computer based program designed for patient data recording in the emergency department (ED).
Material and Method: Of 38532 patients presented to the Emergency Department of Akdeniz University Hospital between January 01, 2002 and December 31, 2002, 30157 patients whose data were recorded in Mediacil program constitute our study population. Demographic properties, complaints, triage categories, days and hours of presentations, mean length of ED stay, consultations, patient outcome, final diagnosis according to the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) were analyzed.
Results: The mean age of patients was 40.76±19.25 years (median); 47.2% of the patients were male. 37.5% of patients were between 20-39 years-old. Triage categories of the patients in Category 1, 2 and 3 were 10.42%, 42.34%, 47.24% respectively. Patients older than 65 years old were 37.1% in category 1. Most common presentation day was Monday and the time period was between 11 a.m and 23 p.m. The mean length of ED stay was 2 hours. Consultation and admission rates were 19.66% and 12.5%, respectively. Chest pain, abdominal pain, shortness of breath and headache were the most common complaints. Most common ED diagnosis were environmental injuries coded with "S" (16.29%); sign, symptoms and abnormal clinical laboratory results coded with "R" (15.71%); and respiratory system diseases coded with "J" (10.88%). Our patient data were similar to current literature on ED patients.
Conclusions: To improve the emergency medical care in Turkey, all ED visits’ data should be recorded in a computer based program. Ideally, these data should be integrated through a network system of hospital and should routinely be analyzed. The analyses of demographic properties of patients contribute to the further ED design and perspective of the emergency departments