Evaluation of Nursing Home Residents Applying to The Emergency Service

Abstract

Background: Emergency deparment (ED) has an important role at the care of nursing home residents and acts facilitator role at the acute care, admission to the hospital, unexpected injuries and hospitals. Our research is aiming the evaluation of the demographic and clinical features of the nursing home patients applying to ED. 
 Materials and methods: The nursing home residents who are aged 18 and over 18 applying to ED at the date between 15.04.2014-15.05.2015 are included to this respective study. In the study, demographic information of the patients and diagnosis and treatment information in the emergency room were evaluated. 
 Results: 51 (52%) of the patients are male. The average age of them is 73. The most frequent disease observed in their medical history is Alzheimer’s disease. The physical examinations of the patients resulted that they have cachexia and dehydration. The oftenest diagnosises detected are lung disease (23.5%), infection (22.4%) and malnutrition (22.4%). It has been also detected that 45% of them admitted to hospital and 3.1% of them are to die. The rate of intensive care admission is 64% while the service admission rate is 36%. 
 Conclusion: The rate of the admission of the nursing home residents to ER and especially to intensive care units is quite high. To ameliorate this condition, training and supervision of the nursing home workers should be made more carefully and often. Since we do not have sociodemographic and clinical data about the nursing home residents applying to ED, more study must be made about this area.