The Pattern of Emergency Department Use and Presenting Complaints of Older Patients at the Emergency Department at Suez Canal University Hospitals, Egypt
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Keywords
ED, Patterns, Clinical presentations.
Abstract
Globally, the percentage of elderly is rising. The increasing use of emergency services by the elderly is linked to this age shift, which has become a significant health concern.
Objective: To describe the pattern of ED use by older patients, illustrate their demographic profiles, and describe present the main complaints.
Methods: The current cross-sectional descriptive study was done at the Emergency Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University. The study included 77 patients aged 60 years and above, of both sexes, who attended the Emergency Department (ED) at SCUHs, Ismailia, Egypt during the period of study. Trauma patients were excluded from the study.
Results: mean age of the patients was 67.6 ± 7.09 years with a range from 60 to 93 years. Patients aged from 60 to 69 years formed the majority of the attendants (66.2%). Male patients formed 66% of the sample, while females showed a significantly higher death rate than males (p=0.0268). Our study demonstrates that the distribution of chronic illness showed statistical insignificant differences among different age groups as p value >0.05. Chronic kidney diseases, cancer and chronic liver diseases were significantly higher among died groups, while DM and hypertension were significantly higher among survived patients. In the current study the distribution of clinical presentations showed statistical insignificant differences among survived versus died patients as p value >0.05. Pulmonary, GIT and cardiac symptoms were significantly higher among higher age groups. died patients had sepsis, COVID, cancer, stroke, and respiratory failure more than survived, while higher age groups had stroke, pneumonia and sepsis.
Conclusions: The elderly population has quite diverse health care demands, which call for extra consideration. Compared to their younger counterparts, they require more admissions to high dependency units, stay longer, and are sicker. The trend of older people using the ED more frequently has clear implications for developing a system of specialized geriatric care in the ED, with a distinct triage process that takes into account their unique needs. It is necessary to conduct more targeted research to examine the connection between triage category and LOS as well as how it affects both short- and long-term outcomes
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