Exploring emergency department visits: factors influencing individuals\u2019 decisions, knowledge of triage systems and waiting times, and experiences during visits to a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia

Nawaf Alhabdan,Moath Hakami,Emad Masuadi,Abdulkareem Alharbi,Faisal Alhusain,Muatassem Alsadhan

doi:10.1186/s12245-019-0254-7

Abstract

BackgroundIn recent years, there has been an increased utilization of emergency departments (EDs) in many countries. Additionally, it is reported that there are major delays in delivering care to ED patients. Longer waiting times are associated with poor patient satisfaction, whereas an understanding of the triage process increases satisfaction. This study aimed to assess ED visitor’s awareness of the triage procedure and their preferences regarding delayed communication.MethodsCross-sectional study of King Abdulaziz Medical City – Emergency Department visitors using a previously validated questionnaire (Seibert 2014) which was translated to Arabic, piloted, and then used for this study.ResultsA total of 334 questionnaires were returned. The mean age of respondents was 33 years. Regarding primary care physicians, only 16% of respondents said that they have one. About 21% of those tried to communicate with them before coming to the ED. Even though only 11% of respondents knew exactly what triage is, 51% were able to correctly explain why some patients are seen before others. Statistical analysis did not show any factors that are associated with increased knowledge of triage. Most respondents (75%) want to hear updates regarding delays with 69% of them preferring to be updated every 30 min.ConclusionsThis study showed that the majority of patients do not know what triage means and that most of them want to know how the ED works. Moreover, a lot of respondents said that they do not have a primary care physician. These results support increasing patient awareness by education and involving them if any delay happens.

Highlights

In recent years, there has been an increase in the utilization of emergency departments (EDs) in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, as the number of patients keeps rising [1, 2]
The second section focused on the use of primary health care facilities prior to the patient’s ED visit, their understanding of ED triage system, the desire to be informed about the delays as well as common health problems during the waiting time, and the time patients expect to wait for results from some ED services, such as X-rays or computed tomography (CT) scans
The importance of addressing this issue lies in the fact that increased knowledge of triage systems is associated with increased patient satisfaction [10, 12, 13]

Summary

Introduction

There has been an increase in the utilization of emergency departments (EDs) in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, as the number of patients keeps rising [1, 2]. Such an issue can be partly attributed to non-urgent presentations, which comprised approximately 50% of all ED cases in Saudi Arabia and Australia [3, 4]. Major delays in delivering care to patients in EDs have been reported in Riyadh (the capital city of Saudi Arabia) [6] All these factors can lead to ED overcrowding with consequences such as increased waiting time, impaired patient-centered care, and disrupted evaluation and treatment [7]. This study aimed to assess ED visitor’s awareness of the triage procedure and their preferences regarding delayed communication

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion