Assessed and discharged - diagnosis, mortality and revisits in short-term emergency department contacts.

BACKGROUND: Emergency departments (EDs) experience an increasing number of patients. High patient flow are incentives for short duration of ED stay which may pose a challenge for patient diagnostics and care implying risk of ED revisits or increased mortality. Four hours are often used as a target time to decide whether to admit or discharge a patient. OBJECTIVE: To investigate and compare the diagnostic pattern, risk of revisits and short-term mortality for ED patients with a length of stay of less than 4 h (visits) with 4-24 h stay (short stay visits). METHODS: Population-based cohort study of patients contacting three EDs in the North Denmark Region during 2014-2016, excluding injured patients. Main diagnoses, number of revisits within 72 h of the initial contact and mortality were outcomes. Data on age, sex, mortality, time of admission and ICD-10 diagnostic chapter were obtained from the Danish Civil Registration System and the regional patient administrative system. Descriptive statistics were applied and Kaplan Meier mortality estimates with 95% CI were calculated. RESULTS: Seventy-nine thousand three hundred forty-one short-term ED contacts were included, visits constituted 60%. Non-specific diagnoses (i.e. symptoms and signs and other factors) were the most frequent diagnoses among both visits and short stay visits groups (67% vs 49%). Revisits were more frequent for visits compared to short stay visits (5.8% vs 4.2%). Circulatory diseases displayed the highest 0-48-h mortality within the visits and infections in the short stay visits (11.8% (95%CI: 10.4-13.5) and (3.5% (95%CI: 2.6-4.7)). 30-day mortality were 1.3% (95%CI: 1.2-1.5) for visits and 1.8% (95%CI: 1.7-2.0) for short stay visits. The 30-day mortality of the ED revisits with an initial visit was 1.0% (0.8-1.3), vs 0.7% (0.7-0.8) for no revisits, while 30-day mortality nearly doubled for ED revisits with an initial short stay visit (2.5% (1.9-3.2)). CONCLUSIONS: Most patients were within the visit group. Non-specific diagnoses constituted the majority of diagnoses given. Mortality was higher among patients with short stay visits but increased for both groups with ED revisits. This suggest that diagnostics are challenged by short time targets.

Metabolic bone disease in patients with epilepsy and the use of antiepileptic drugs - Insight from a Danish cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is a bone disorder defined by a decrease in bone mineral density (BMD) which can lead to an increased risk of fractures. Patients with epilepsy are more prone to having fractures. When accounting for seizure-related fractures, the epilepsy patient population still suffers from an increased risk of fractures. This can be attributed to adverse effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the use of AEDs and decreased BMD in a large unselected population of Danish patients with epilepsy. METHOD: The study was a cross-sectional study based on data retrieved from 835 patients visiting an outpatient Epilepsy Clinic in Glostrup, Denmark, from January 1st 2006 - January 31st 2018. The data included results from DXA-scans and demographic information. Logistic regression models and other statistical analyses were performed. RESULTS: The results showed that the odds for having osteoporosis when taking EIAEDs were 2.2 (95 % CI: 1.2-3.8, P = 0.007) times higher than those taking NEIAEDs. Furthermore, the odds for having osteoporosis increased with duration of epilepsy (OR = 1.0, 95 % CI: 1.0 - 1.0, P = 0.001) and when the patients consume two AEDs compared to one AED (OR = 2.3, 95 % CI: 1.3-4.1, P < 0.001). Additionally, consuming three AEDs compared to one lead to a 2.3 times higher risk of having osteoporosis (95 % CI: 1.2-4.4, P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: When accounted for many riskfactors, EIAEDs, polytherapy with AEDs and duration of epilepsy are correlated with osteoporosis. There is a need for using these known riskfactors as guidelines in indentifying patients at increased risk of developing osteoporosis.