Patients Attending Emergency Departments: A Cross-sectional Study of Subjectively Perceived Treatment Urgency and Motivation for Attending.
Background: The number of patients in emergency departments has risen steadily in recent years, with a particular increase in patients not requiring urgent treatment. The aim of this study is to characterize this group of patients with respect to their sociodemographic features, health status, and r...
| Publicado en: | Deutsches Ärzteblatt International Vol. 114; no. 39; pp. 645 - 654 |
|---|---|
| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Deutscher Aerzte-Verlag GmbH
9/29/2017
|
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=125736915&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 125736915 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 18660452 5F0N jtl: Deutsches Ärzteblatt International issn: 18660452 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 9/29/2017 vid: 114 iid: 39 pid: 25312 pub: Deutscher Aerzte-Verlag GmbH artinfo: ui: 125736915 10.3238/arztebl.2017.0645 125736915 ppf: 645 ppct: 9 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Patients Attending Emergency Departments: A Cross-sectional Study of Subjectively Perceived Treatment Urgency and Motivation for Attending. aug: au: Scherer, Martin Lühmann, Dagmar Kazek, Agata Hansen, Heike Schäfer, Ingmar affil: Department of General Practice/Primary Care, Hamburg University Medical School, Hamburg-Eppendorf sug: ab: Background: The number of patients in emergency departments has risen steadily in recent years, with a particular increase in patients not requiring urgent treatment. The aim of this study is to characterize this group of patients with respect to their sociodemographic features, health status, and reasons for attending an emergency department. Methods: PiNo Nord is a cross-sectional observational study representing two full working weeks in five different hospitals. Patients were questioned in personal interviews, and medical diagnoses were documented. The data were analyzed with multivariate logistic regressions in mixed multilevel models. Predictors for the subjectively perceived treatment urgency were identified by stepwise backward selection. Results: The 1175 patients questioned had an average age of 41.8 years and 52.9% were male. 54.7% said the degree of their treatment urgency was low. 41.3% had visited the emergency department on their own initiative, 17.0% on the advice or referral of their primary care physician, and 8.0% on the advice or referral of a specialist. The strongest predictors for low subjective treatment urgency were musculoskeletal trauma (odds ratio [OR] 2.18), skin conditions (OR 2.15), and the momentary unavailability of a primary care physician (OR 1.70). Conclusion: More than half of the patients do not think their condition requires urgent treatment and thus do not meet the definition of a medical emergency. Patients' reasons for visiting the emergency department are varied; aside from the treatment urgency of the health condition itself, the reason may lie in perceived structural circumstances and individual preferences. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|