Emergency department visits and hospitalisations for emergent asthmatic symptoms from 2014 to 2016: cross-sectional study in Korea

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the characteristics of emergent patients with asthma who visited emergency departments (EDs) in Korea, and the consequences of these visits. DESIGN: Retrospective cross-sectional study. SETTING: We used data from the National Emergency Department Information System database from 2014 to 2016. The data included reports collected from 408 EDs in Korea. PARTICIPANTS: We analysed the ED cases for asthma-related emergent symptoms that met the following inclusion criteria: (1) had a main diagnosis code of asthma (International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision code: J45/J46), and (2) recorded as an emergent symptom in the EDs. RESULTS: During 2014–2016, there were 58 713 ED visits related to an asthma diagnosis with emergent symptoms. Following an ED visit, 31.69% were hospitalised, of which 89.88% were admitted to the general wards, and 10.12% to the intensive care units (ICUs). More than 50% of the hospitalised cases included in the group ≥70 years of age. The incidence of death during hospitalisation generally increased with age and the proportion of death in ICU exceeded 10% among the group ≥70 years. The ratio of ICU/general ward admission at the arrival time of 0–03:00, in the ≥60 years age group was the highest compared with other times of the day and age groups. CONCLUSIONS: We found that among all age groups, ED visits by older patients resulted in more ICU admissions. Our results can help in providing a better understanding of medical resource utilisation by emergent patients with asthma.