Investigation of the reasons and frequency of oncology patients over the age of 65 who apply to the emergency department

TL;DR

This study examines why older cancer patients visit emergency departments, finding common reasons like infection and pain, and highlights gaps in patient knowledge about seeking care.

Contribution

The study identifies key reasons for emergency visits among elderly oncology patients and links them to insufficient medical guidance.

Findings

The most common reasons for emergency visits were infection, pain, nausea-vomiting, and dyspnea.

A significant difference was found between patients' emergency visit reasons and their knowledge of when to seek help.

Recurrent visits suggest a lack of comprehensive information for patients and caregivers.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate frequency and causes of emergency department visits among oncology patients aged 65 and older.

In this cross-sectional, descriptive and comparative study, data were collected a questionnaire form from a single emergency deparment of a university hospital in İzmir, West Turkey between January 2022 and July 2022. Data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics 25 software.

A total 125 patients were included in the study. The most common causes of patients to the emergency derparment were infection, pain, nausea-vomiting, and dyspnea. A significant difference was found between the reason for the patient’s emergency department visit and their knowledge of when to seek medical help (p < 0.05).

The recurrent visits of cancer patients to emergency departments suggest an inadequacy of comprehensive information available to both patients and their caregivers concerning the pursuit of emergency medical intervention.