Patients who leave the emergency department against medical advice

Introduction: Patients leaving against the advice of the treating team before being certified as fit is a major concern and challenge for the treating professionals as it possesses adverse medical outcomes. This study hence aimed at identifying the prevalence and major factors affecting such discharges so that advocacy can be done to help prevent it. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at emergency department of a tertiary center in Lalitpur from 15th May 2019 to 15th August 2019. All the patients visiting the emergency department were included in the study and a non-probability purposive sampling method was used excluding the patients who denied giving reasons for them leaving against medical advice. Data was collected using pre-structured questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS-v21 software. Results: A hundred and fifteen patients (4.08%) left against medical advice out of 2812 patients who presented to emergency department. There were 63 male patients (54.8%), 75 patients of the total patients in the age group of 15-44 years (65.2%) and those living within a distance of 1km from the hospital (53%). The most common reason for the patients leaving against medical advice was found to be due to financial constraint (38.3%) followed by preference to other hospitals (16.5%). Conclusion: Patients leaving against medical advice possesses a small percentage of actual hospital admissions but is still a major health concern as it drastically increases the morbidity, re-admission rates and total health-care costs. Hence, understanding the general characteristics and predictors of such discharges is of utmost importance to help improve the patient outcome and reduce the health-care costs.

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Discharge against medical advice from the emergency department in a university hospital

BMC Emergency Medicine ◽

10.1186/s12873-021-00422-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Feras H. Abuzeyad ◽

Moonis Farooq ◽

Salah Farhat Alam ◽

Mudhaffar Ismael Ibrahim ◽

Luma Bashmi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emergency Department ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Small Sample ◽

Medical Advice ◽

University Hospital ◽

High Risk Population ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Against Medical Advice ◽

Level 3 ◽

Collection Form

Abstract Background Patients discharged against medical advice (DAMA) act as a high-risk population for the Emergency Department (ED), regardless of their presentations, and can pose a serious burden for the hospital. This study examines the prevalence, demographic and clinical characteristics, reasons, and clinical outcomes of a small sample of DAMA patients in a teaching university hospital, including readmission, morbidity, and mortality. Methods A prospective, descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the ED of King Hamad University Hospital (KHUH) with 98,992 patient visits during a 1-year period from June 2018 to June 2019. Consenting DAMA patients were asked to complete a data collection form. Results Patients (n = 413) had a mean age of 44.1 years with a female majority (57.1%). The majority were categorized as triage level-3 (87.7%). The main reasons for DAMA included refusal of the procedure/operation (23.2%), long ED waiting time (22.2%), subjective improvement with treatment (17.7%), and children at home (14.8%), whereas the least selected reason was dissatisfaction with medical care (1.2%). Follow-up of DAMA patients revealed that 86 cases (20.8%) were readmitted to the ED within 72 h of which 41 (47.7%) cases were morbidity and 2 (2.3%) were mortality. Marital status was a predictor of DAMA patients who revisit the ED within 72 h. Conclusion The results act as a pilot study to examine a small sample of DAMA patients’ characteristics, diagnosis, and ED revisits. Hospitals should investigate further the DAMA population on a larger scale, reasons for refusing procedures, and utilize this knowledge to improve the healthcare process.

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Rate and causes of discharge against medical advice from a university hospital emergency department in Iran: an ethical perspective

Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine ◽

10.18502/jmehm.v13i15.4391 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sanaz Rouhbakhsh Halvaei ◽

Hojat Sheikh Motahar Vahedi ◽

Ayat Ahmadi ◽

Maryam Sadat Mousavi ◽

Alireza Parsapoor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emergency Department ◽

Medical Staff ◽

Medical Advice ◽

University Hospital ◽

P Value ◽

Emergency Ward ◽

Ethical Perspective ◽

Against Medical Advice ◽

Discharge Against Medical Advice ◽

Clinical Records

Discharge against medical advice (DAMA) is a common problem in the health-care system. It imposes risks to both patients and medical staff and could be the subject of ethical deliberation. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 on 400 patients who were discharged against medical advice from the emergency ward of Shariati Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Patients’ information was collected using clinical records and telephone calls. The collected data were analyzed using STATA software. DAMA rate was 12% in the emergency department of Shariati Hospital. Male gender was found to be a risk factor for DAMA (OR: 1.90; CI (95%): 1.44 - 2.52; P < 0.0001). In addition, younger patients were more likely to leave hospital against medical advice (p-value: 0.04). The more common reasons for DAMA were feeling better, long delay in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and the hectic ambience of the emergency ward. Patients’ self-discharge is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that is affected by patients’ characteristics, medical conditions and hospital circumstances. It raises some ethical concerns, mainly due to a conflict between patients’ autonomy and beneficence. It is helpful for the medical staff to create an effective relationship with patients who are at higher risk of DAMA, in order to increase their compliance and prevent the consequences of leaving hospital against medical advice.

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Audit of documentation proficiency of emergency department patients who are discharged against medical advice before and after implementation of a checklist

Journal of Hospital Administration ◽

10.5430/jha.v5n4p28 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 28

Author(s):

Sze Joo Juan ◽

Ghee Hian Lim ◽

Beng Leong Lim

Keyword(s):

Emergency Department ◽

Primary Outcome ◽

Medical Advice ◽

Against Medical Advice ◽

Documentation Quality ◽

Before And After ◽

Discharge Against Medical Advice ◽

Emergency Department Patients ◽

A Prospective Study

Objective: Documentation of the discharge against medical advice (AMA) is poorly performed in the emergency department (ED). Little is known about the impacts of a checklist on this. Our study aimed to compare the quality of AMA documentation before and after implementation of a checklist.Methods: A retrospective review was conducted followed by a prospective study; each over three months of AMA interactions in our ED pre and post implementation of a checklist. An 11-point checklist was used to determine documentation quality during these two periods. Quality was assessed based on the number of points fulfilled on this tool. Documentation was classified as “good” (8-11), “average” (4-7) and “poor” (0-3). The primary outcome measured was the proportions of discharged AMA records that showed “good”, “average” and “poor” documentation. Secondary outcomes were compliance rates to each of the categories of the checklist before and after its use.Results: 339 and 309 complete records were retrieved from the retrospective and prospective arms respectively. The proportions of case records in the three grades before and after use of the checklist respectively were: poor, 199/339 (59%) vs. 7/313 (2%); fair, 133/339 (39%) vs. 66/313 (21%) and good 7/339 (2%) vs. 240/313 (77%); all p-values were statistically significant. There were also statistically significant differences in compliance rates to each of the categories of the checklist pre and post checklist implementation.Conclusions: This study shows improvement in quality and compliance rates in the audit categories after the implementation of an AMA checklist.

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