Emergencias : revista de la Sociedad Espanola de Medicina de Emergencias最新文献

Objectives: To identify characteristics associated with a new fall in a patient who received emergency department care after an accidental fall and to develop a risk model to predict repeated falls.

Material and methods: The FALL-ER registry included accidental falls in patients over the age of 65 years treated in 5 Spanish emergency departments. Independent variables analyzed were patient characteristics at baseline, fall characteristics, immediate consequences, and functional status on discharge. Patients were followed with telephone interviews for 6 months to record the occurrence of new falls. Multivariate regression analysis was used to identify variables associated with falling again and to develop a risk model. We identified 3 levels of risk for new falls (low, intermediate, and high).

Results: A total of 1313 patients were studied; 147 patients (11.2%) reported having another fall. Variables associated with risk of falling again were having had a fall in the 12 months before the index fall, neurological disease, anemia, use of non-opioid analgesics, falling at home, falling at night, head injury on falling, and need for help when rising from a chair. The probability of falling again was 3.5%, 10.5%, and 23.3%, respectively, in patients at low, intermediate, and high risk. The model's ability to discriminate was moderate: the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.688 (95% CI, 0.640-0.736).

Conclusion: One in 9 older adults treated in an emergency department for an accidental fall will fall again within 6 months. It is possible to identify patients at higher risk for whom preventive measures should be implemented.

Objectives: To analyze whether short-term outcomes are affected when patients diagnosed with acute heart failure (AHF) spend time in an emergency department observation unit (EDOU) before hospital admission.

Material and methods: Baseline and emergency episode data were collected for patients diagnosed with AHF in the EDs of 15 Spanish hospitals. We analyzed crude and adjusted associations between EDOU stay and 30-day mortality (primary outcome) and in-hospital mortality and a prolonged hospital stay of more than 7 days (secondary outcomes).

Results: A total of 6597 patients with a median (interquartile range) age of 83 (76-88 years) were studied. Fifty-five percent were women. All were hospitalized for AHF (50% in internal medicine wards, 23% in cardiology, 11% in geriatrics, and 16 in other specialties. Of these patients, 3241 (49%) had had EDOU stays and 3350 (51%) had been admitted immediately, with no EDOU stay. Having an EDOU stay was associated with female sex, dementia or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, long-term treatment with certain drugs for heart failure, greater baseline deterioration in function, and a higher degree of decompensation. Patients in the EDOU group were more often admitted to an internal medicine ward and had shorter stays; cardiology, geriatric, and intensive care admissions were less likely to have had an EDOU stay. Overall, 30-day mortality was 12.6% (13.7% in the EDOU group and 11.4% in the no-EDOU group; P = .004). In-hospital mortality was 10.4% overall (EDOU, 11.1% and no-EDOU, 9.6%; P = .044). Prolonged hospitalization occurred in 50.0% (EDOU, 48.7% and no-EDOU, 51.2%; P = .046). After adjusting for between-group differences, the EDOU stay was not associated with 30-day mortality (hazard ratio, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.99-1.31). Odds ratios for associations between EDOU stay and in-hospital mortality and prolonged hospital stay, respectively, were 1.09 (95% CI, 0.92-1.29) and 0.91 (95% CI, 0.82-1.01).

Conclusion: Although mortality higher in patients hospitalized for AHF who spend time in an EDO, the association seems to be accounted for by their worse baseline situation and the greater seriousness of the decompensation episode, not by time spent in the EDOU.

Objectives: To determine whether symptoms and levels of severity of intoxication from street drugs differ between adolescents and young adults who come to hospital emergency departments for treatment.

Material and methods: We studied a consecutive cohort of adolescents (aged 12-17 years) and young adults (aged 18-30 years) who were treated in 11 hospital emergency departments belonging to the Drug Abuse Network of Spanish Hospital Emergency Departments (REDURHE). Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and level of severity were recorded for comparison between between adolescents and young adults, adjusted for sex, alcohol co-ingestion, and type of drug used. An intoxication was recorded as severe if at least 1 of the following indicators was present: cardiac arrest, tracheal intubation, intensive care unit admission, and in-hospital death.

Results: We included a total of 2181 patients: 249 adolescents (11.4%) and 1932 young adults (88.6%). Alcohol coingestion and use of multiple drugs were less common in adolescents, who had significantly more events related to cannabis (in 81.1% vs 49.0% of young adults) and benzodiazepines (13.3% vs 5.5%). The adolescents had significantly fewer intoxications from the use of cocaine (10.8% vs 45.1%), amphetamines (17.3% vs 32.3%), ketamine (0.4% vs 6.0%) and gamma-hydroxybutyrate (0.4% vs 4.0%). A higher proportion of adolescents than young adults presented with diminished consciousness (23.0% vs 16.9%), but fewer manifested anxiety (15.9% vs 26.3%), palpitations (11.0% vs 19.5%), or chest pain (2.8% vs 9.2%). The pattern of associations was similar in the subgroup of intoxications due to cannabis. The adjusted model confirmed that the adolescents were more likely to have diminished consciousness, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.851 (95% CI, 1.204-2.844) and less likely to have anxiety (OR, 0.529 (95% CI, 0.347-0.807). Intoxication was severe in 46 patients overall (2.1%); in adolescents and young adults the proportions were 0.8% and 2.3%, respectively (P = 0.129). In adolescents, the OR was 0.568 (95% CI, 0.131-2.468) for severity; for component indicators, the ORs were 0.494 (95% CI, 0.063-3.892) for intubation and 0.780 (95% CI, 0.175-3.475) for intensive care unit admission. No deaths occurred.

Conclusion: Adolescents requiring emergency care for street drug intoxication had co-ingested alcohol or taken multiple drugs less often than young adults. Cannabis was the drug most often used by adolescents, who presented more often with diminished consciousness but less often with anxiety. We detected no differences related to event severity.

Text: Recent years have seen great advances in the use of clinical ultrasound imaging in both hospital emergency departments and out-of-hospital settings. However, all new techniques require up-to-date definitions of competencies relevant to the clinical realities of different specialties and the geographic settings in which specialists work. To that end, a group of experts in clinical ultrasound reviewed the evidence available in the literature and strictly applied the Delphi method to define the competencies relevant to emergency physicians. The group worked with the starting premise that clinical ultrasound imaging should be a common competency across the specialty.

Objectives: To characterize phenotypes of prehospital patients with COVID-19 to facilitate early identification of at-risk groups.

Material and methods: Multicenter observational noninterventional study of a retrospective cohort of 3789 patients, analyzing 52 prehospital variables. The main outcomes were 4 clusters of prehospital variables describing the phenotypes. Secondary outcomes were hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, admission to an intensive care unit, and cumulative mortality inside or outside the hospital on days 1, 2, 3, 7, 14, 21, and 28 after hospitalization and after start of prehospital care.

Results: We used a principal components multiple correspondence analysis (factor analysis) followed by decomposition into 4 clusters as follows: cluster 1, 1090 patients (28.7%); cluster 2, 1420 (37.4%); cluster 3, 250 (6.6%), and cluster 4, 1029 (27.1%). Cluster 4 was comprised of the oldest patients and had the highest frequencies of residence in group facilities and low arterial oxygen saturation. This group also had the highest mortality (44.8% at 28 days). Cluster 1 was comprised of the youngest patients and had the highest frequencies of smoking, fever, and requirement for mechanical ventilation. This group had the most favorable prognosis and the lowest mortality.

Conclusion: Patients with COVID-19 evaluated by emergency medical responders and transferred to hospital emergency departments can be classified into 4 phenotypes with different clinical, therapeutic, and prognostic characteristics. The phenotypes can help health care professionals to quickly assess a patient's future risk, thus informing clinical decisions.