Korean J Pediatr.  2010 Mar;53(3):314-322. 10.3345/kjp.2010.53.3.314.

Clinical analysis of pediatric patients who visited a general hospital emergency center

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Masan Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Masan, Korea. ljh3643@skku.edu

Abstract

PURPOSE
Through a clinical and retrospective analysis of pediatric patients who visited the Regional Emergency Medical Center of Masan Samsung Hospital from January 2007 to December 2008, we characterized pediatric and adolescent emergency patients to improve emergency care in future.
METHODS
We reviewed the medical records of 14,065 pediatric patients below 19 years of age.
RESULTS
The male to female ratio was 1.5:1, and the most common age group was less than 3 years (49.6%). The peak month was May (10.0%), the peak day of the week was Sunday (24.7%), and the peak time of day was 20:00.20:59 (8.5%). There was no difference in the number of visits per day based on weather (sunny, rain [below 10 mm per day], snow, and fog) or daily temperature difference; however, visits increased on sandy, dusty days and decreased on rainy days with more than 10 mm of rain per day. Based on the international classification of disease (ICD)-10 system, the most common disease code was code R (symptoms, sign, and abnormal clinical laboratory finding) (31.5%), and the most common symptom was fever (13.1%). Final outcomes were discharged (73.8%), admitted (25.7%), transferred (0.4%), and expired (0.1%). In adolescent patients aged 15.19 years, the most common disease code was Injury & Poisoning (code S&T, 36.9%); the most common symptom was abdominal pain (9.6%).
CONCLUSION
Pediatric patients visiting the emergency center were most likely to be male and under 3 years of age and to visit between 20:00 and 21:00 on Sundays and in May, and the most common symptom was fever. Differences between adolescents and pediatric patients showed that adolescents had a higher visiting rate with abdominal pain and a larger temperature difference.

Keyword

Emergency medical center; Weather; Adolescent; Child; Infant

MeSH Terms

Abdominal Pain
Adolescent
Aged
Child
Emergencies
Emergency Medical Services
Female
Fever
Hospitals, General
Humans
Infant
Male
Medical Records
Nitroimidazoles
Rain
Retrospective Studies
Snow
Sulfonamides
Weather
Nitroimidazoles
Sulfonamides
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