Here one year, gone the next? Investigating persistence of frequent emergency department attendance: a retrospective study in Australia.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Patients are presenting to emergency departments (EDs) with increasing complexity at rates beyond population growth and ageing. Intervention studies target patients with 12 months or less of frequent attendance. However, these interventions are not well targeted since most patients do not remain frequent attenders. This paper quantifies temporary and ongoing frequent attendance and contrasts risk factors for each group.

Design

Retrospective population-based study using 10 years of longitudinal data.

Setting

An Australian geographic region that includes metropolitan and rural EDs.

Participants

332 100 residents visited any ED during the study period.

Main outcome measure

Frequent attendance was defined as seven or more visits to any ED in the r

SUBMITTER: Lago L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6596941 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature