Admissions to emergency department may be classified into specific complaint categories

Abstract

Introduction: In the emergency departments (ED), a heterogeneous mix of patients is seen. The aim of this study was to establish a limited number of categories of complaints and symptoms covering the majority of admissions in a Danish ED and to quantify the volume of cases in each category.

Material and methods: This was a cross-sectional study of all acute patients admitted to a Danish ED in 2010. Information was collected from electronic screens where the ED nurses registered the presenting symptoms or complaints according to the referring doctor or patient. A list of complaint categories covering all patient complaints was produced. Presumptive diagnoses and categories with frequencies less than 1% were pooled with other groups, unless keeping them was clinically relevant.

Results: Among the 9,863 patients, 49% were medical, 31% surgical, 15% orthopaedic and 5% vascular surgical patients. In 35% of cases, the patients were referred with a presumptive diagnosis, in 65% with a complaint or a symptom; and 11,031 complaints were placed in 13 main categories, 77 subcategories and 44 presumptive diagnoses. This aggregation resulted in 99 groups holding less than 1% of the patients' complaints. Further aggregation resulted in 31 categories covering 93% of the complaints. Of the complaints not covered, the largest groups were patients with post-operative complications and special examination for various diseases (5%).

Conclusion: We have presented a first suggestion for complaint categories and distribution among admitted patients in a Danish ED setting. Further studies from other EDs are required.

Funding: not relevant.

Trial registration: NCT01747434.