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Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background and Objectives The emergency department (ED) is the most important unit of a hospital and is often visited by an ever-increasing proportion of geriatric patients. However, in Pakistan, there is an inadequacy of geriatrics specialists. The objective of this study was to assess the profile...

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Autores principales: Mushtaq, Saima, Abro, Muhammad Tarish, Sualeh, Muhammad, Uddin, Muhammad Roohan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8901140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35273845
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21874
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author Mushtaq, Saima
Abro, Muhammad Tarish
Sualeh, Muhammad
Uddin, Muhammad Roohan
author_facet Mushtaq, Saima
Abro, Muhammad Tarish
Sualeh, Muhammad
Uddin, Muhammad Roohan
author_sort Mushtaq, Saima
collection PubMed
description Background and Objectives The emergency department (ED) is the most important unit of a hospital and is often visited by an ever-increasing proportion of geriatric patients. However, in Pakistan, there is an inadequacy of geriatrics specialists. The objective of this study was to assess the profile of geriatric patients in the ED. We considered main diagnoses, frailty, and other factors that help to come up with certain findings that may assist with policymaking and initiatives for better geriatric care in Pakistan. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. The study population comprised 101 patients aged 65 years and older who attended the hospital’s ED from July to September 2021. Data were collected by taking the patients’ histories. Results The majority of patients were aged between 65 and 70 years. The most common diagnoses were: gastrointestinal disorders, cerebrovascular accidents, and neurologic disorders. More than half of the patients were found to be frail by the five-item FRAIL questionnaire. The mean Charlson Comorbidity Index score was 5.37 ± 1.88. Conclusion It was concluded that the need for geriatric care is worth mentioning since it imposes a significant burden on the ED. The geriatric patients had a higher risk of being on the critical list as most of them were frail and suffered from multiple severe comorbidities. Our results can assist in the development of geriatric emergency medicine and acute care systems in Pakistan.
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spelling pubmed-89011402022-03-09 Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study Mushtaq, Saima Abro, Muhammad Tarish Sualeh, Muhammad Uddin, Muhammad Roohan Cureus Emergency Medicine Background and Objectives The emergency department (ED) is the most important unit of a hospital and is often visited by an ever-increasing proportion of geriatric patients. However, in Pakistan, there is an inadequacy of geriatrics specialists. The objective of this study was to assess the profile of geriatric patients in the ED. We considered main diagnoses, frailty, and other factors that help to come up with certain findings that may assist with policymaking and initiatives for better geriatric care in Pakistan. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. The study population comprised 101 patients aged 65 years and older who attended the hospital’s ED from July to September 2021. Data were collected by taking the patients’ histories. Results The majority of patients were aged between 65 and 70 years. The most common diagnoses were: gastrointestinal disorders, cerebrovascular accidents, and neurologic disorders. More than half of the patients were found to be frail by the five-item FRAIL questionnaire. The mean Charlson Comorbidity Index score was 5.37 ± 1.88. Conclusion It was concluded that the need for geriatric care is worth mentioning since it imposes a significant burden on the ED. The geriatric patients had a higher risk of being on the critical list as most of them were frail and suffered from multiple severe comorbidities. Our results can assist in the development of geriatric emergency medicine and acute care systems in Pakistan. Cureus 2022-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8901140/ /pubmed/35273845 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21874 Text en Copyright © 2022, Mushtaq et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/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 author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Emergency Medicine
Mushtaq, Saima
Abro, Muhammad Tarish
Sualeh, Muhammad
Uddin, Muhammad Roohan
Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_fullStr Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full_unstemmed Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_short Profile of Geriatric Patients Attending the Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_sort profile of geriatric patients attending the emergency department of a tertiary care hospital in karachi: a cross-sectional study
topic Emergency Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8901140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35273845
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21874
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