Béland F, Lemay A, Philibert L, Maheux B, Gravel G
Groupe de reccerche interdisciplinaire en santé, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Med Care. 1991 May;29(5):408-18. doi: 10.1097/00005650-199105000-00002.
Past studies have shown in many instances that elderly people are represented in the hospital emergency room in proportion to their distribution in the population. It is possible, though, that elderly patients in the emergency room are using different types of resources than individuals of a younger age. Samples of two hospital emergency room users were selected in 1981 and in 1986. Patients aged 25 years or older were included in the study. The dependent variable was the extent to which patients used resources available at the hospital emergency room only or at alternative emergency medical services in the community. The effect of age on the use of resources in the hospital emergency rooms was estimated separately for those who were transported to the emergency room by ambulance and for those who were not. Age had an effect on use of resources under both conditions, regardless of the patients' gender, time of the visits, availability of alternative sources of emergency care, and diagnostic categories. The role of the hospital emergency room is to address medical care needs of specific segments of the population in special circumstances. Elderly emergency room patients are indeed one of these specific segments with very special needs.
过去的研究在许多情况下表明，老年人在医院急诊室的就诊比例与他们在人口中的分布比例相符。然而，急诊室中的老年患者使用的资源类型可能与年轻人不同。1981年和1986年选取了两家医院急诊室使用者的样本。年龄在25岁及以上的患者被纳入研究。因变量是患者仅使用医院急诊室可用资源或社区替代急诊医疗服务的程度。对于那些由救护车送往急诊室的患者和未由救护车送往急诊室的患者，分别估计了年龄对医院急诊室资源使用的影响。无论患者的性别、就诊时间、替代急诊护理来源的可用性以及诊断类别如何，在这两种情况下年龄都对资源使用有影响。医院急诊室的作用是在特殊情况下满足特定人群的医疗护理需求。老年急诊室患者确实是这些有非常特殊需求的特定人群之一。
