A profile of individuals accompanying patients in the emergency department: An analysis of 5046 cases.

BACKGROUND: There has been no comprehensive study on identifying the sociocultural characteristics and the factors affecting the number of relatives and/or friends accompanying patients. The purpose of this study was to identify these sociocultural characteristics and the factors affecting this. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research was designed as a cross-sectional, one-to-one interview study. A study population representing one in three patients aged over 18 years and presenting consecutively to the emergency department over a 1-month period was constituted with systematic sampling. A sample size of at least 4483 patients was planned with a 1% margin of error and 90% power. RESULTS: Two thousand nine hundred and fifty (58.5%) of the 5046 patients included in the study were male. Patients' mean age was 38.4 ± 17.4 years (median 34 years). At least one friend or relative accompanied 3690 (73.1%) patients, and the mean number of accompanying individuals was 1.50. A higher level of accompaniment and a higher mean number of accompanying individuals were determined in patients presenting to the emergency department outside working hours, with altered mental state, attending hospital for the first time, with chronic disease, requiring hospitalization, in illiterate patients, in patients who had not studied at university, in patients aged 65 or over, and in patients presenting to hospital and the emergency department for the first time compared to other parameters (<0.01 for all). CONCLUSION: The number of people accompanying patients increases with sociocultural factors such as gender, age, literacy, and education level. In addition, similar increase can be observed with patients coming to emergency department by ambulance or having a chronic disease or arrive with lost consciousness.

Successful intravenous lipid emulsion therapy: Olanzapine intoxication.

Olanzapine is an antipsychotic drug used in psychiatric diseases. At high doses it exhibits cardiovascular and neurological sideeffects in particular. Lipid emulsion therapy for the removal of medication from plasma in high-dose lipophilic drug use has recently become very widespread. In the light of current literature, this report discusses the successful treatment of a patient within 4 hrs of olanzapine overdose as an attempted suicide, who presented with agitation and clouded consciousness.

Complications of gynecological laparoscopy: experience of a single center.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence and type of laparoscopic complications seen in a teaching hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four hundred and forty-one diagnostic and operative laparoscopic procedures were performed by the same senior resident/resident surgical team. Direct entry technique was used for all procedures. RESULTS: The procedures included 74 (16.8%) diagnostic and 367 (83.2%) operative laparoscopies. The overall complication rate was 7.7% (34 cases). Conversion to laparotomy occurred in 16 cases (3.6%). CONCLUSIONS: The complication rate was found to be slightly higher than the rates quoted in the literature. This rate of 7.7% is still an acceptable one.