Background: Abdominal pain is a common complaint for patients revisiting the Emergency Department (ED). Evaluating the cause of the revisit can improve the quality of ED patient care.
Objective: We aimed to analyzed unscheduled revisits after diagnosis of abdominal pain at emergency department.
Materials and Methods: In order to determine the characteristics of their abdominal pain and the causes for the revisits, the charts of 90 patients were reviewed. These patients had experienced acute abdominal pain and had returned to the Emergency Department within 48 hours after their initial treatment during the period between January 2019 and December 2019.
Results: During that time period, 44,000 patients visited the ED. Of these, 90 patients (0.2%) with acute abdominal pain or related symptoms had revisited the ED within the following 48 hours. Most of these patients had been 20 to 60 years of age and had had no co-morbid diseases. Almost half of patient revisits had occurred during the evening shift (45.6%). There were 74% of these patients, who had been admitted to hospital for observation or for procedures. No in-hospital mortality was reported for this study. The signs and symptoms of abdominal pain in these patients had not been specific. The factors, which most often contributed to the ED revisits, had been inappropriate consultations and inappropriate discharges or advises.
Conclusion: The majority of the acute abdominal pain patients, who revisited the ED within 48 hours, had been admitted. The most common cause of revisits had been inappropriate consultations and inappropriate discharges. Improving ED patient care can be managed by contributing to effective consultations and to establishing an effective discharge system for the ED.
Keywords: Revisits, Emergency medicine department, Acute abdominal pain
Imaging of non-traumatic acute abdominal pain in adults presenting to the emergency department
