The Related Factors to Urgent Disease in Triaging Patients with Acute Abdominal Pain in Emergency Department

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Abdominal pain is the most common symptom of patients visiting the emergency department (ED). Abdominal pain is caused by a variety of causes, so it is difficult for a triage nurse to determine the urgency of a patient, but it is still a must. The purpose of this study was to identify the related factors to the urgent diseases of patients with abdominal pain visiting ED.METHODS: This study was a retrospective descriptive study. The study setting was an ED in a tertiary hospital in Korea. Data were collected from September 1, 2017 to October 15, 2017. During the study period, of a total of 6,181 patients visiting the ED, 731 complained of abdominal pain. Patients with obvious cause of pain and patients who could not express detailed symptoms were excluded. The 573 patients were included in the final analysis. We collected demographics, clinical characteristics, and final diagnosis. We divided final diagnoses into urgent diseases which were more likely to be life-threatening without treatment and non-urgent diseases. We identified the related factors to the urgent diseases of patients with abdominal pain using the logistic regression.RESULTS: 173 (30.2%) patients had urgent diseases. Age (OR=1.02, 95% CI=1.00~1.03), referral from other clinics (OR=2.92, 95% CI=1.86~4.60), ambulance utilization (OR=2.00, 95% CI=1.27~3.15), diarrhea (OR=0.44, 95% CI=0.25~0.76), and tachycardia (OR=2.27, 95% CI=1.44~3.58) were related to urgent diseases.CONCLUSION: Triage nurse should take into account the patient's age, mode of visiting, and route of visiting ED; and check the symptom of tachycardia or diarrhea.