Status of Geriatric Patients with Abdominal Pain Presented To Emergency Department

Abstract

Background: As the development of better health facilities with advanced tools for diagnosis and management our country is not away from global trend. Nepal’s life expectancy at birth is increasing at its pace, it has in­creased in about 30 years in last 4 decades. Among the various problem presenting to ED abdominal pain is one of the common complain elderly patients are greater risk of missing life-threatening causes during evalua­tion and investigation. The aim of the study wasEdit to identify the frequency, cause and outcome of patient presenting in Emergency department with abdominal pain.

Methods: It is a retrospective study conducted in tertiary care center at Chitwan, Nepal during the period from 01/09/2017 to 30/08/2018. Elec­tronic data entered by medical officer were retrieved and analyzed. Statis­tical analysis of the record was done using SPSS 16 software.

Results: Elderly population who presented with chief complaints of ab­dominal pain was 1160 (21.79%). Among the patient presented with ab­dominal pain 605(52.2%) were male and 555(47.8%) were female. Mean age of patients was 71.72±8.50 years. Most common system involved was gastrointestinal and biliary problem 730(62.93%). Most common diagno­sis was Urinary tract infection 269 (23.2%) among them, 487(41.98%) re­quired hospital admission.

Conclusions: Abdominal pain is one of the common presentations of el­derly to emergency department. Disorders of Gastrointestinal and biliary system were among leading causes of emergency visit. Emergency phy­sician should be tactful to identify life threatening conditions and emer­gency management.