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A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of information about the prevalence of stress and types of stressors experienced by Emergency Department (ED) patients. OBJECTIVE: The present aim is to study the prevalence of stress, types of stressful situations and the relationship with other health issues within the...

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Autores principales: Nirenberg, Ted D, Baird, Janette, Harrington, Magdalena, Mello, Michael J, Woolard, Robert, Longabaugh, Richard
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20009303
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0974-2700.55325
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author Nirenberg, Ted D
Baird, Janette
Harrington, Magdalena
Mello, Michael J
Woolard, Robert
Longabaugh, Richard
author_facet Nirenberg, Ted D
Baird, Janette
Harrington, Magdalena
Mello, Michael J
Woolard, Robert
Longabaugh, Richard
author_sort Nirenberg, Ted D
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a lack of information about the prevalence of stress and types of stressors experienced by Emergency Department (ED) patients. OBJECTIVE: The present aim is to study the prevalence of stress, types of stressful situations and the relationship with other health issues within the ED population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study performed in an ED at a level-1 urban trauma center for four months. An anonymous survey was offered to adult non critically ill patients who were admitted in the ED. They were divided on the basis of gender, age and level of stress and were asked about their demographics, reasons for their ED visit and health issues including stress, tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use, weight concern and health. Chi-square for the categorical variables and unpaired t-tests for continuous variables were conducted. RESULTS: We interviewed 1797 patients, over 66% reported that they felt stressed on at least a weekly basis, and over 45% indicated that they felt stressed more than twice per week. While both young and old were equally stressed, females reported significantly more stress. Family, finances and work are the most frequently cited stressors. Different age groups reported different types of stressors. Overall, those patients reporting being stressed more frequently reported more high risk behaviors including cigarette and marijuana use and health problems including being overweight, being depressed, and having sleeping problems and chronic fatigue. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the high frequency of ED patients that report frequent stress and high risk behaviors, their ED visit may be an excellent opportunity to provide a referral or an intervention for stress reduction.
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spelling pubmed-27763612009-11-18 A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients Nirenberg, Ted D Baird, Janette Harrington, Magdalena Mello, Michael J Woolard, Robert Longabaugh, Richard J Emerg Trauma Shock Original Article BACKGROUND: There is a lack of information about the prevalence of stress and types of stressors experienced by Emergency Department (ED) patients. OBJECTIVE: The present aim is to study the prevalence of stress, types of stressful situations and the relationship with other health issues within the ED population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study performed in an ED at a level-1 urban trauma center for four months. An anonymous survey was offered to adult non critically ill patients who were admitted in the ED. They were divided on the basis of gender, age and level of stress and were asked about their demographics, reasons for their ED visit and health issues including stress, tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use, weight concern and health. Chi-square for the categorical variables and unpaired t-tests for continuous variables were conducted. RESULTS: We interviewed 1797 patients, over 66% reported that they felt stressed on at least a weekly basis, and over 45% indicated that they felt stressed more than twice per week. While both young and old were equally stressed, females reported significantly more stress. Family, finances and work are the most frequently cited stressors. Different age groups reported different types of stressors. Overall, those patients reporting being stressed more frequently reported more high risk behaviors including cigarette and marijuana use and health problems including being overweight, being depressed, and having sleeping problems and chronic fatigue. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the high frequency of ED patients that report frequent stress and high risk behaviors, their ED visit may be an excellent opportunity to provide a referral or an intervention for stress reduction. Medknow Publications 2009 /pmc/articles/PMC2776361/ /pubmed/20009303 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0974-2700.55325 Text en © Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Nirenberg, Ted D
Baird, Janette
Harrington, Magdalena
Mello, Michael J
Woolard, Robert
Longabaugh, Richard
A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title_full A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title_fullStr A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title_full_unstemmed A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title_short A cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
title_sort cross-sectional study of the self-report of stress among emergency department patients
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20009303
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0974-2700.55325
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