Relationship between Re-visits and Complaints' Characters of Out Patient Department and Emergency Department in One Tertiary Hospital

PURPOSE: Emergency department (ED) and Outpatient department (OPD) are similar to some extent, but there are differences. The difference is complaints that can be encountered during practice. The aim of this study was to investigate complaints of OPD and ED and factors associated with Re-visits. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated 431 official complaints of visitors and 426 re-visitors in one tertiary university hospital OPD and ED between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014. RESULTS: ED complaints were 18 times more common than OPD. The two groups differed in chronic disease, follow up duration and frequency, transportation, visiting day of the week, visiting time, relation between patient and claimant, claimant age, related department, medical department, method of expression, major reason for complaints, treatment result, and re-visit. The factors associated with ED re-visits were chronic disease, follow up duration and frequency, treatment result, and expression method. CONCLUSION: Doctors, particularly emergency physicians in the ED, were the subject of the most common complaints. Patients had more complaints about the subjective time delay than the ED retention time. Emergency physicians should be more alert for first visit patients.