Frequentattendance: a Clinical and Epidemiological Study

Abstract

Background

Frequent attenders (F a) are patients who attend a health care facility repeatedly. The frequency of frequent attendance at emergencies department has been defined as 4 or more attendances/annum. F a are few in number but they produce a high number of attendances.

aims

To determine prevalence of F a, mean attendances/year generated by F a and frequency of visits by months.

Methods

a retrospective study was performed on psychiatry's emergency department database from January until December 2013. F a was defined as those with ≥ 4 attendances at emergency services in a year.

Prevalence of F a, attendances’ prevalence, diagnosis’ prevalence, Mean attendances generated by F a and frequency of visits by months were analysed.

Results

among 4824 attendances we found 181 F as (5.98%). Men represented 50.80% and women 49.20%. F a presented a mean of 6.33 attendances/year, while non-F a presented a mean of 1.29 attendances/year.

in accordance with frequency of visits by months, it was observed that number of attendances was increased inapril and May, in both F a and non-F a.

Conclusion

Prevalence of F a was 5.98%, F a generated a 23.74% of attendances. Most prevalent F a’ diagnoses were: anxiety disorder, personality disorder non-specified and schizophrenia.

F a at emergency department contributes to overcrowd them.for this reason, it is important to take into account these results to develop new strategies to improve F a’ attention and prevent its occurrence.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.