Medicine and Health  2016;11(1):22-28

Factors Associated with Emergency Department Revisits and Hospitalization Following Discharged Acute Asthma Exarcerbation

Nik Muhamad NA ; Kwong LJ

Keywords

acute asthma exacerbation; emergency department; revisit; corticosteroid

Country

Malaysia

Language

English

Abstract

The objectives were to identify factors associated with early revisit of adult patients with acute asthma exarcebation discharged from the Emergency Department (ED). It was a retrospective cohort study with patients aged 12 years or more within a period of 1 month and who were treated for acute asthma and discharged from the ED of Sarawak General Hospital. A total of 397 patients fulfilled sampling criteria and out of this number, 13.9% had revisit to the ED within 2 weeks. In all of these revisit cases, 9.1% were actually admitted. Prescription rate of oral corticosteroid was found to be low (24.9%) and abscond rate was high (25.1%). Patients who absconded from the ED and their concurrent infection were associated with early ED revisit.