@article{ref1,
title="Indicated trauma emergency department utilization - a comparison between patients' self-assessment and professional evaluation",
journal="International emergency nursing",
year="2019",
author="Burchard, Rene and Oikonomoulas, Vasileios and Soost, Christian and Zoremba, Martin and Graw, Jan Adriaan",
volume="44",
number="",
pages="30-34",
abstract="INTRODUCTION: Patient visits to emergency departments (EDs) increase in many countries. As a result, these facilities are often congested and the socioeconomic burden of growing workload is a well-known problem. In this study, patients' reasons attending an ED with non-emergent needs were analyzed. <br><br>METHODS: From October 2015 to March 2016 patients (n = 499), attending the ED of an academic teaching hospital without referral from a General Practitioner (GP) were surveyed regarding circumstances of their visit, a self-assessment of illness-severity, and reasons for choosing the ED instead of a GP. <br><br>RESULTS were compared to responses of ED staff (n = 40). <br><br>RESULTS: Most patients assessed their case as urgent (patients: 65% vs. ED staff: 28%, p < 0.001) and felt that their medical problem could not to be treated by a GP (74%). However, most patients ranked their injuries as mild (45.7%) or moderate (41.7%). Reasons to prefer an ED instead of a GP were not responded in 80.1% of cases. <br><br>CONCLUSION: In contrast to the self-evaluation of patients, ED staff believed that a significant portion of medical problems could be treated by a GP. Understanding patient-centred reasons and the discrepancy between self-perceived emergencies and minor medical problems might help to reduce inappropriate ED-admissions.<br><br>Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1755-599X",
doi="10.1016/j.ienj.2019.02.006",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2019.02.006"
}