[Epidemiological study of emergency services at a tertiary care center].
OBJECTIVE
The number of patients attended in emergency rooms has gone up considerably in recent years. Immigration and an increase in life-expectancy have probably influenced this increase. A lot of patients come looking for immediate attention in order to avoid long waiting lists for specialist care at primary health-care facilities. The main objective is to know what pathologies in ear, nose and throat require urgent medical assistance.


METHODS
This is a retrospective descriptive study of 8,872 patients seen in a year. The variables analyzed were age, gender, day of the week, time of arrival, final result). In addition, a category distribution was made, depending on the pathology suffered: otological, rhinological, pharyngeal, laryngeal, cervical and others.


RESULTS
The daily mean was about 25 patients per day. There were no differences in distribution by gender. Monday was the day of the week when more patients were seen. Otological pathologies represented the most frequent reason for attending (32 %), followed by pharyngeal emergencies. However, epistaxis (9.2 %) was the most common entity. The final outcome for about 85 % of the patients was discharge to home on the same day.


CONCLUSIONS
The rising demand for emergency attention in hospitals must be meticulously analyzed because it might become even worse, taking epidemiological trends into account. Different foci and new policies regarding emergency centres should be proposed.
Hijano
Rafael
R
Fundació Hospital Asil, Granollers, Barcelona, España. rafa.hijano@gmail.com
Hernández
Anabella
A
Martínez-Arias
Angels
A
Homs
Isabel
I
Navarrete
M Luisa
ML
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010038:Otorhinolaryngologic Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult