Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients referred to the psychiatry unit of the emergency department at the National University of Asunción’s General Hospital, Paraguay

Abstract

ABSTRACTAll psychiatric consultations carried out over one year at the Psychiatry Unit of the Emergency Department at the National University of Asuncion’s Clinical Hospital, Paraguay were analysed with the aim of quantifying the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients presenting to our facilities in order to learn the most common diagnosis, patient characteristics and treatment approaches. We recruited patients admitted to the emergency department between 1 May 2015 and 1 May 2016 for whom a psychiatric consultation was required. Only the first consultation of each patient was taken into consideration. Our study sample included 800 patients. Categorical variables were presented as frequencies and percentages. For comparing the means, we used the Student's t-test or ANOVA, as appropriate. For analyzing the association between categorical variables, we performed Pearson’s chi-squared test. We considered test results with p < 0.05 as significant. Statistical analyses were performed using the Ep...