To determine the percentage of patients presenting to an ER in the year prior to psychiatric consultation in a MHU, noting which is the most common assitance and the differences regarding sex, age and marital status.
Retrospective and descriptive study of ER assistances at the Hospital Cl¨ªnico de Santiago in the previous year of patients attending our MHU. Time period: from February 1st 2010 to August 31th 2010. Once collected the data, these are analyzed using the Excel 2008 Statistical Package for Mac.
From 577 patients studied (68.3 % women), 224 had gone at least once to the ER in the last year (72.3 % women): 19.6 % consulted for psychiatric conditions and 80.4 % for somatic causes. Among the predominant somatic complaints we found musculoskeletal causes (24.4 % ), cardiovascular (8.8 % ), respiratory (9.4 % ) and gynecological (2.7 % ). 3 % of them were hospitalized in medical or surgical services and 3 % in psychiatric units. There was not statistically significant differences regarding their age. Married and divorced patients went to the ER more than bachelors or widowers.
Profile of the studied patient: ¡°Woman, 53 years old, married, user of an outpatient MHU and that has consulted at least once in the last year to an ER due to musculoeskeletal cause.?/div>