oa A prospective study regarding factors related to unscheduled revisit within 72 hours in adult Emergency Department, Al Khor Hospital, State of Qatar

Background: Crowding in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) is a commonly observed problem all over the world.

Objectives: To identify the factors related to patients’ unscheduled revisits to ED.

Methods: The Al Khor Hospital annual ED patient volume of 158,000. The census sample of patients who had revisited within 72 hours of discharge from the ED was recruited in the study. The CERNER system was utilized to collect all revisited patients’ data. Two experts from the pool of ED consultants reviewed the data independently.

Results: During the study period, 24,933 patients visited in ED, 849 revisited within 72 hours of their discharge, which accounts for 3.4%. The characteristics of revisited patients included young adults between 20–40 years of age (59.79%), mostly males (78.94%). Physician-related factors were: missed diagnosis (1.6%), adverse drug reaction (1.3%) and discharged without home medication (8.4%). Patient related, 60.26% (331) perceived that they were not improved with initial treatment. The vast majority of this patients (97.2 %) were discharged from the ED. Illness-related factors were the most common reason for revisits to ED; 52.9% (362) returned with same complaints while 21.3% (146) returned with related complaints, out of which 97.6% patients were discharged and 1.3 % (7) were admitted to the hospital. Of the remainder, 22.8% of the patients (156) reported to ED with new complaints. System related factors: 23.49% revisited patients lived in Al Khor or nearby, with their primary health center facility being 70 km away from their residential area.

Conclusion: From our study, we found the majority of revisits were due to illness or system-related factors. Effective educational program and initiation of telenursing service for discharged patients can prevent unnecessary ED visits.