Abstract
Background: When in emergency room there is no enough area left to serve or to admit the subsequent sick patients who may require urgent attention and observation the setting is called as the overcrowded emergency room. Due to overcrowded emergency department the quality of services provided by the staff and doctors is compromised ultimately patients with severe diseases are ignored and this may be one of the causes for causalities.
 Objective: To assess the daily burden and factors responsible for overcrowding at emergency department of tertiary care hospital of Karachi.
 Methodology: It was a cross sectional study conducted at tertiary care hospital of Karachi from October 2020 to January 2021. Data of patients coming to adult emergency department of either gender were collected. Patients age <14 were excluded as these were referred to pediatric emergency department. Data collection was done according to Canadian emergency department triage and acuity scale (CTAS).
 Results: Total number (N) of patients who visited emergency department in study duration was 13434. The mean number of patients who visited ED was 141±13during our study duration. There was no any significant difference in presenting complaint. Delay in investigations was found to be a reason of prolong stay and overcrowding in ED in our setting.
 Conclusion: Overcrowding of patients in our ED of our setting was a common problem. The number of staff, doctors and beds were not matching the number of patient flow in the department. The main reason of prolong stay in ED was delay in investigations.
Highlights
When in emergency room there is no enough area left to serve or to admit the subsequent sick patients who may require urgent attention and observation the setting is called overcrowded emergency room [1]
Prolong waiting due to overcrowded emergency room may put someone’s life in danger and it affects the credibility of the doctor and staff along with that put a question mark on the services provided by the hospital [3,4]
In literature the documented reasons for overcrowded emergency room are large population size in different cities and shortage of hospitals, delay in the results of investigation of people and deficient investigation tools [5,6]. It was highlighted by Rose et., al. that one of the reasons behind overcrowded emergency room could be the deficiency of supporting staff such as nurses [7]
Summary
When in emergency room there is no enough area left to serve or to admit the subsequent sick patients who may require urgent attention and observation the setting is called overcrowded emergency room [1]. In literature the documented reasons for overcrowded emergency room are large population size in different cities and shortage of hospitals, delay in the results of investigation of people and deficient investigation tools [5,6]. It was highlighted by Rose et., al. Due to overcrowded emergency department the quality of services provided by the staff and doctors is compromised patients with severe diseases are ignored and this may be one of the causes for causalities.
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