Résumé
Objective Emergency department overcrowding (EDO) is an increasingly international occurrence which affects the quality and access of health care across the globe.We assessed perceptions of EDO by a detailed and comprehensive surveying of current international research literatures.Methods Through PubMed and BMC electronic literatures search engines from 1974 to 2012,1587 papers of original articles,reviews and comments with key wordsemergency departmentANDcrowding OR overcrowding are selected.Results 52.6％ (835/1587) all selected literatures is original research articles.21.2％ (n =337) of these papers involved the disciplinary construction of emergency medicine,and editorial comment (included viewpoints) holds almost one fifth (302,19.0％).Most common types of study methods in all original researches is single-center cohort study (722/835,86.5％),and none of them was multi-center,randomized control clinical trial.The number of papers on EDO is 8 during 1974 and 1988,and gradually elevated to 325 during 1989 and 2002.Yet the number has climbed up to 1254 dramatically (account for 79％) during 2003 and 2012.Together,USA,Canada and Austria,these three countries generated more than three-quarters of all published literatures (81.0％).So far,the authors in 48 countries and areas gave forth initial contributions in the field of EDO.Conclusions The studies and papers about EDO are steadily increasing in recent years.But the investigation shows the research quality still remain need to improve.This systemic review on EDO studies showed that the standardized measurement of EDO has become the bottleneck of EDO study.It is very important and urgent for ED staff to establish an objective and effective EDO evaluation system.