Awareness of Saudi Population about the Role of the Emergency Rooms

ABSTRACT

Background: The hospital Emergency department (ED) is one of the most important components of the health delivery system. Objectives: To investigate the public awareness of the ERs in KSA, what the public knows about the provided services, and if they know the difference between the outpatient clinic and ERs. Methods: It is a cross-sectional descriptive community-based study carried out on 977 male and female, young and adult participants from all age groups, in different areas of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, during the period from 1st January to 31st July 2019. Data was collected through filling the pre-designed online questionnaire which guided us to the needed data. We utilized the SPSS program version 16. The X2 test was used as a test of significance, and differences considered significant at p-value less than 0.05. Results: Most of the participants (87.5%) reported that they know the difference between the outpatient clinic and ER. The majority (68.1%) of subjects said that ERs is meaning rapid and unplanned medical care, 17.3% said any needed health care is available there, 12.2% said that it means insufficient medical care and only 2.5% said it means availability of physician at any time for any purpose. As regards evaluation to the provided services in ERs; 32.5% of cases said it was very good followed by 28.5% good, 19.8% excellent, 10.2% accepted and 10% reported it was bad services. There were significant relations between the awareness and age (p=0.03) and education level (p=0.003), but no relation was found with the gender of the participant (p>0.5). Conclusion: In our study, Most of the participants reported that they know the difference between the outpatient clinic and ERs. The majority of subjects said that ERs is meaning rapid and unplanned medical care and/or availability of physician at any time for any purpose. There were significant relations between the awareness and age and education level, but insignificant relation was found with the gender of the participant.