Objective: Peritonitis is a life-threatening, emergent surgical disease with very high mortality and morbidity. Currently, there are insufficient Korean studies using the P-POSSUM (Portsmouth-Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and morbidity) and the Mannheim Peritonitis Index (MPI) as risk prediction models for nontraumatic peritonitis patients who visit the emergency room. Methods: This retrospective study was carried out on 196 cases of non-traumatic peritonitis in a single emergency center from January 2015 to December 2019. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was compared using both P-POSSUM and MPI. The observed mortality and expected mortality for P-POSSUM were compared using the goodness of fit assessed using the Hosmer-Lemeshow equation. Results: Diastolic blood pressure, blood urea nitrogen, potassium, length of stay, and intensive care unit admissions were significantly different between survivors and non-survivors. The AUC was 0.812 for P-POSSUM and 0.646 for MPI. The observed-to-expected mortality ratio for P-POSSUM indicated fewer than expected deaths in all quintiles of risk and this was more pronounced, especially when the expected mortality was over 60%. Conclusion In non-traumatic peritonitis patients, P-POSSUM was more useful in predicting risk than the MPI score. However, P-POSSUM overestimated the risk in high-risk patients. Although the MPI score is only somewhat useful for predicting mortality in patients with non-traumatic peritonitis, it is useful as an adjuvant.

Objective: Unlike common acute urinary tract infections, obstructive urinary tract infections caused by urinary calculus can be fatal because they can progress to sepsis and cause shock or disseminated intravascular coagulation. The evidence of patients with obstructive urinary tract infections caused by urinary tract stones visiting the emergency center is still lacking. Methods: Seventy-seven patients who visited the emergency room with obstructive urinary tract infections caused by urinary calculus from January 2016 to December 2018 were enrolled in this study and divided into two groups: sepsis group and non-sepsis group. Results: The lymphocyte count, platelet count, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, serum creatinine, and C-reactive protein were significantly different in the sepsis-positive and negative groups. Percutaneous nephrostomy was also significantly higher in the sepsis-positive group. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was calculated to evaluate the ability of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-lymphocyte ratio to predict a septic urinary tract infection. The neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-lymphocyte ratio were 0.659 and 0.550, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that diabetic patients, percutaneous nephrostomy, and serum creatinine were associated with septic obstructive urinary tract infection. Conclusion In patients with an obstructive urinary tract infection who were referred to the emergency center, diabetic patients and those with high blood urea nitrogen and creatinine levels are at high risk of sepsis. In such cases, rapid diagnosis and treatment, such as percutaneous nephrostomy, are necessary.

OBJECTIVE: Public concerns and awareness of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are essential for improving the survival outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in the community. On the other hand, the proportion of OHCA, in which AED is used in a prehospital setting, is very low in Korea. The aim of this study was to identify the barriers and training issues of AEDs. METHODS: A nationwide population-based survey was conducted to analyze the current public trends in AED awareness, training, and intention to use in 2017 (n=506). The barriers and training issues of AEDs were then documented. For trend analysis, previous tri-temporal surveys were obtained in 2007, 2011, and 2015. RESULTS: Public awareness of AEDs has increased: from 5.8% in 2007, to 30.6% in 2011, 82.6% in 2015, and 79.4% in 2017 (P<0.001). The training experience of AEDs has increased over time: from 0.5% in 2007 to 8.2% in 2011 and 33.2% in 2017. Thirty-two percent of respondents knew how and where to find the AEDs, but only 12.5% were able to certainly locate their public-access AED near their residency or work places. The reasons for being unwilling to use the AED included not knowing how to use (65.0%), fear of causing harm to the victim (21.3%), and legal liability (11.7%). CONCLUSION: Not knowing the location of AED and how to use it, and being unaware of the Good Samaritan Law were the major barriers to public access defibrillation. Further research is urgently needed if AEDs are to be increased and more lives saved.
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ; Defibrillators ; Hand ; Intention ; Internship and Residency ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Liability, Legal ; Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest ; Public Health ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Workplace

OBJECTIVE: Syncope is mostly benign, but it can also be caused by a life-threatening situation. In Korea, no studies have investigated application of the Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS) to patients with syncope; therefore, this study was started to evaluate the usefulness of CSRS. METHODS: A total of 222 patients who visited the emergency room with syncope for one year from January 2016 to December 2016 were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into two groups, a serious adverse events (SAE) group and a non-serious adverse events group. The scores of the nine CSRS variables were added and the CSRS was then calculated after the addition. RESULTS: The CSRS score for patients with SAE ranged from 0 to 8. The CSRS score was 18.6%, 31.7%, 55.6%, and 58.8% for 0, 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In the case of CSRS 0 and 1, 17 patients (81.0%) and 11 patients (84.6%) were non-cardiac. In the case of CSRS 2, 7 were non-cardiac (70.0%). In the case of CSRS 3, 6 cases (60.0%) were cardiogenic and 4 cases (40.0%) were non-cardiogenic. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of CSRS to predict SAE was 0.71. Setting the CSRS cutoff value to 0, we found that sensitivity and specificity of predicting SAE was 67.19% and 67.09%, respectively. CONCLUSION: CSRS may be difficult to predict for acute intracranial disease or acute hemorrhagic disease requiring transfusion; therefore, it is necessary to supplement it further.
Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Humans ; Korea* ; Risk Factors ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Syncope*

PURPOSE: In patients with altered mentality caused by drugs or unknown causes, ammonia is checked to facilitate differential diagnosis or diagnose hepatic coma. This helps early prevention and treatment of brain damage due to hyperammonemia. This study was conducted to evaluate clinical characteristics of intoxicated adult patients with hyperammonemia. METHODS: We evaluated 95 patients with hyperammonemia among intoxicated patients above the age of 15 who visited our ED from January 2013 to December 2015. We analyzed the demographic characteristics and type of poisoning substance, reason for ingestion, toxicological characteristics such as elapsed time from ingestion to hospital visit, lab, clinical progression and complications. Data were evaluated using the student's t test or Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables, and Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test for frequency analysis of categorical variables. RESULTS: When compared to healthy individuals, patients with hyperammonemia showed statistical significance on their SOFA score (p=0.016) and poison severity score (p<0.001). Additionally, patients with hyperammonemia showed significantly different initial serum AST level (p=0.012) and maximum serum AST level during the hospital stay (p=0.026) when compared to healthy individuals. Moreover, individuals with sustained hyperammonemia compared to transient hyperammonemia showed clinically significant SOFA scores (p<0.001), poison severity scores (p=0.007), mortality rates in the ICU (p=0.021), as well as different duration of hospital stay (p=0.037), serum creatinine level (p=0.002), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p=0.025), and serum myoglobin (p=0.015). CONCLUSION: Most poisoning-induced hyperammonemia cases were transient and recovered without special treatment. Therefore, hyperammonemia is almost non-specific among poisoning patients.
Adult ; Ammonia ; Blood Sedimentation ; Brain ; Creatinine ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Eating ; Hepatic Encephalopathy ; Humans ; Hyperammonemia* ; Length of Stay ; Mortality ; Myoglobin ; Poisoning

PURPOSE: Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and dissemination of its training are essential to improve the survival outcomes of sudden cardiac death. The purpose of this study was to investigate the tri-temporal trend analysis of the national CPR capacity variables and preparedness in a community. METHODS: This nationwide population-based study used structured questionnaire by a telephone survey for CPR in 2007 (n=1,029), in 2011 (n=1,000), and in 2015 (n=1,000). We used stratified cluster sampling to assess the impact of age, gender, and geographic regions. The contents in the questionnaire consisted of CPR awareness, self-efficacy for bystander CPR, prior training status, and willingness of public CPR training. RESULTS: The proportion of CPR awareness and its recent training experience (<2 years) increased from 89.0% and 14.6%, respectively, in 2007 to 88.5% and 18.7% in 2011, and finally to 94.8% and 30.6% in 2015 (both p for trend<0.001). More than 95% of respondents had agreed to mandatory CPR training acquiring a driver's license or CPR education in school. The awareness of Good Samaritan Law was increased from 20.5% in 2011 to 28.7% in 2015; however, the overall values were lower than the other CPR-related awareness and preparedness. CONCLUSION: In Korea, the trends of national CPR capacity index have been increasing during the past decade. However, the public awareness of the Good Samaritan Law was still low. We suggest that promoting the Good Samaritan Law should be the next step in preparing public CPR training in the future.
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation* ; Death, Sudden, Cardiac ; Education ; Health Services Needs and Demand ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Licensure ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Telephone

PURPOSE: The terminology that represented major trauma was vague, inconsistent, and lacked validation. The objective of this study is to investigate the new definition of polytrauma in adult patients of major trauma. METHODS: A retrospective data of adult major trauma patients [Age≥15, 16≤Injury Severity Score (ISS)<75] from a regional trauma center were collected in period between July 2011 and December 2013 and divided into two groups: polytrauma and non-polytrauma. We compared the demographic, laboratory characteristics, and outcomes in patients with major trauma, polytrauma and non-polytrauma. Univariate associations were calculated, and a multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the parameters associated with in-hospital mortality and early death. RESULTS: A total of 662 patients met the inclusion criteria for major trauma. Of these, 150 (22.7%) met the new polytrauma definition. In the major trauma group, the mean ISS was 22, in-hospital mortality rate was 23.4%, and early death rate was 20.7%. In the polytrauma group, ISS was 27, in-hospital mortality rate was 44.7%, and early death rate was 38.7%. In the non-polytrauma group, ISS was 20, in-hospital mortality rate was 17.2%, and early death rate was 15.4%. Of the five physiologic parameters (systolic blood pressure≤90 mmHg, Glasgow Coma Scale≤8, base deficit≥6, international normalized ratio≥1.4/activated partial thromboplastin time≥40 seconds, age≥70 years), the lowest in-hospital mortality was found when one parameter was involved (2.5%), and the highest mortality was found when all parameters were involved (100%). CONCLUSION: Based on “The new Berlin definition”, polytrauma was associated more with in-hospital mortality and early death than non-polytrauma in adults. The five physiologic parameters were correlated with in-hospital mortality.
Adult* ; Berlin* ; Coma ; Hospital Mortality ; Humans ; Injury Severity Score ; Logistic Models ; Mortality* ; Multiple Trauma* ; Patient Outcome Assessment ; Retrospective Studies ; Thromboplastin ; Trauma Centers

The poisoning information database (PIDB) provides clinical toxicological information on commonly encountered toxic substances in Korea. The aim of this study was to estimate the coverage rate of the PIDB by comparing the database with the distribution of toxic substances that real poisoning patients presented to 20 emergency departments. Development of the PIDB started in 2007, and the number of toxic substances increased annually from 50 to 470 substances in 2014. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients with toxic exposure who visited 20 emergency departments in Korea from January to December 2013. Identified toxic substances were classified as prescription drug, agricultural chemical, household product, animal or plant, herbal drug, or other. We calculated the coverage rate of the PIDB for both the number of poisoning cases and the kinds of toxic substances. A total of 10,887 cases of intoxication among 8,145 patients was collected. The 470 substances registered in the PIDB covered 89.3% of 8,891 identified cases related to poisoning, while the same substances only covered 45.3% of the 671 kinds of identified toxic substances. According to category, 211 prescription drugs, 58 agricultural chemicals, 28 household products, and 32 animals or plants were not covered by the PIDB. This study suggested that the PIDB covered a large proportion of real poisoning cases in Korea. However, the database should be continuously extended to provide information for even rare toxic substances.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Animals ; Animals, Poisonous ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Databases, Factual ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/poisoning ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pesticides/poisoning ; Plants, Medicinal/poisoning ; Poisoning/*epidemiology ; Prescription Drugs/poisoning ; Republic of Korea ; Retrospective Studies ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to perform a comparative analysis of training methodology between accessibility and needs for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the community. METHODS: This population-based nationwide study used a structured questionnaire via telephone survey in 2011-2012. The study was conducted by stratified cluster sampling to assess the impact of age, gender, and geographic regions (n=1,000). The contents of the questionnaire consisted of awareness, prior training status, and willing methodology of public CPR training. RESULTS: Thirty-eighty percent of respondents (n=381) had previously been taught CPR. Military service, education facility/ school, and workplace were 3 major resources of public CPR training among previously educated subjects (45%, 23%, and 9%, respectively). Seventy-two percent of trainees had been taught less than an hour and only 60% were trained using an individual manikin for CPR practice. Fifty-nine percent (n=593) had willingness to participate in CPR education and 40% of subjects wished to learn in a hospital or health care facility. Place of CPR training showed a major difference between previous experiences and willing groups in the community. Women and elders were more likely to learn CPR. Almost all respondents wanted short-duration learning (<1 hour), however, it was similar in the groups. CONCLUSION: In the scope of the public, training site showed a significant discrepancy between previous accessibility and needs of layperson. They prefer a highly accessible location and method with relatively short-practice programs.
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation* ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education ; Female ; Health Services Needs and Demand ; Humans ; Learning ; Manikins ; Military Personnel ; Telephone

PURPOSE: Various scoring systems have been introduced in grading severity and predicting mortality of trauma patients. The objective of this study is to apply novel trauma scoring systems; BIG score (Base deficit (B), International normalized ratio (I), Glasgow Coma Scale (G)), Emergency Trauma Score (EMTRAS), Probability of Survival score version 12 (PS12), and MGAP (Mechanism, GCS, Age, Arterial pressure) to adults with major trauma, and to compare their performance with traditional systems; Injury Severity System (ISS), Revised Trauma Score (RTS), and Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS). METHODS: Retrospective data collected between January 2011 and June 2012 from a regional trauma center registry on adult major trauma patients (Age> or =18, ISS> or =16) were used to identify factors associated with death. Univariate associations were calculated, and a multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine variables associated with hospital mortality. RESULTS: A total of 298 adult major trauma patients were retrieved in order to validate new trauma scoring systems. The median ISS was 22 [interquartile range (IQR) 17~25], and the hospital mortality rate was 30.9%. Traditional trauma scoring systems were each calculated to have an area under the curve of ISS 0.72 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.67-0.77], TRISS 0.91 (95% CI: 0.88-0.94), and RTS 0.90 (95% CI: 0.86-0.93). New trauma scoring systems were calculated to have an area under the curve of EMTRAS 0.91 (95% CI: 0.87-0.94), BIG score 0.90 (95% CI: 0.86-0.93), PS12 0.91 (95% CI: 0.87-0.94), and MGAP 0.89 (95% CI: 0.85-0.93). CONCLUSION: The new trauma scoring systems (EMTRAS, BIG, MGAP) were good predictors of mortality in adult major trauma patients on admission. They performed well compared to traditional trauma scoring systems (ISS, RTS, TRISS).
Adult* ; Emergencies ; Fatal Outcome ; Glasgow Coma Scale ; Hospital Mortality ; Humans ; Injury Severity Score ; International Normalized Ratio ; Logistic Models ; Mortality* ; Retrospective Studies ; Trauma Centers ; Trauma Severity Indices ; Triage