Profile of patients visiting the pediatric emergency service in an Egyptian university hospital.

BACKGROUND

The emergency department (ED) is an essential component of the medical service offered in any hospital. Yet, the published information about patients' profile and utilization of emergency services in both developing and developed countries is scarce.

AIM: This study aimed to characterize the presentation and outcome of patients visiting the ED of a university-based tertiary pediatric hospital.

METHODS

This is a descriptive study reporting the profile of patients visiting the ED for 1 year.

RESULTS

The total number of patients visiting the hospital was 249,552, with a monthly average of 20,046 patients, including 3639 monthly ED visits. "Treat-and-release" cases represented 46.7% and infants represented the largest age group (44.4%). The main presentation was respiratory distress (24.4%) and wheezy chest (17.3%), followed by convulsions (15%) and then pallor (10.7%). Long-term illnesses were predominantly congenital heart diseases, cerebral palsy, chronic hemolytic anemia, and asthma. The overall mortality rate was 0.8%.

CONCLUSIONS

Appropriate and ongoing data collection and analysis could guide more efficient utilization of pediatric emergency services to achieve better outcomes.