UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems, University College Dublin, Ireland.
J Adv Nurs. 2012 May;68(5):1003-13. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05800.x. Epub 2011 Aug 10.
This paper is a report of a study of older emergency department attendees' demographic, health and social profiles.
Relative to the general population, older people are higher users of hospital emergency departments. Attendance is most often associated with medical need, including a chronic condition and related morbidities.
A series of standardized health and social profiling questionnaires was administered to a non-probability sample of 307 older emergency department attendees. The sample was recruited during the spring-summer and autumn-winter periods in 2008 and 2009 at two hospitals in the city of Dublin. Subjects who met the inclusion criteria were recruited as they presented to the emergency department during the hours 8 am to midnight. The sample was stratified into those admitted and those discharged, with the aim of equally representing each stratum. Data were collected at the time of the index visit or shortly following hospital admission.
Medical conditions accounted for almost half of all reasons for attendance and the health profile of the sample was characteristic of a population of chronically ill older people. Relative to the national picture for older people's social networks in Ireland, a proportion of the sample was at risk of social isolation.
In the absence of other avenues to treatment and based on health profile and diagnostic category, older people's attendance at the emergency department was appropriate. The hospital emergency department remains a major arm of the Irish health service in dealing with the morbidity associated with enduring illness.
本文是一项关于老年急诊科就诊者人口统计学、健康和社会特征的研究报告。
与一般人群相比，老年人更频繁地使用医院急诊科。就诊通常与医疗需求有关，包括慢性病及相关并发症。
在 2008 年和 2009 年的春夏季和秋冬季，在都柏林市的两家医院，对一个非概率样本的 307 名老年急诊科就诊者进行了一系列标准化的健康和社会特征问卷调查。符合纳入标准的患者在急诊科就诊时间为上午 8 点至午夜 12 点时被招募。该样本分为住院和出院两组，旨在均匀代表每个组。在就诊时或住院后不久收集数据。
医疗状况占所有就诊原因的近一半，样本的健康状况符合慢性病老年人群的特征。与爱尔兰老年人社会网络的全国情况相比，该样本中存在社会隔离风险的比例。
在缺乏其他治疗途径的情况下，基于健康状况和诊断类别，老年人到急诊科就诊是合理的。医院急诊科仍然是爱尔兰卫生服务部门处理与长期疾病相关的发病率的主要手段。
