Observational studyBMC emergency medicine2020
The growing impact of older patients in the emergency department: a 5-year retrospective analysis in Brazil.
Observational study in BMC emergency medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Two Brief Steps, Better Foresight: Cognitive Screening and Adverse Outcomes in Older Adults Admitted From the Emergency Department.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2026Article
- Beyond Triage: Cognitive Profiles and ED-To-Inpatient Costs and Resource Pathways in Older Adults.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026Article
- Barriers and facilitators to implementing digital psychosocial interventions for older adults presenting to emergency departments: a scoping review.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Post-Discharge COVID-19 Symptoms Predict 1-Year Functional Decline, Falls, and Emergency Department Visits: A Cohort Study.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- The impact of a mobile geriatric acute team on healthcare consumption.European geriatric medicine · 2024Article
- Impact of nursing home admission on in-hospital mortality and morbidity and length of stay: A case-control analysis.Surgery in practice and science · 2024Article
- Intrinsic capacity and hospitalization among older adults: a nationally representative cross-sectional study.European geriatric medicine · 2024Article
- Initial Development of a Patient Reported Experience Measure for Older Adults Attending the Emergency Department: Part I-Interviews with Service Users.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe average age of the global population is rising at an increasing rate. There is a disproportional increase in Emergency Department (ED) visits by older people worldwide. In the Brazilian health system, complex and severely ill patients and those requiring specialized urgent procedures are referred to tertiary level care. As far as we know, no other study in Latin America has analyzed the impact of demographic changes in tertiary ED attendance.
aimTo describe the sociodemographic characteristics and outcomes of tertiary Brazilian ED users.
methodsDesign: Observational cross-sectional analytic study.
settingEmergency Department, tertiary university hospital, São Paulo, Brazil.
participantspatients aged 18 years or older attending a tertiary ED (2009-2013). The primary outcomes were hospitalization and mortality; the secondary outcome was ICU admission. Age was categorized as 'young adults' (18-39y), 'adults' (40-59y), 'young-older adults' (60-79y), and 'old-older adults' (80-109y). Other variables included sex, reason for attendance, time of ED visit, mode of presentation, type of hospitalization, main procedure, length of hospital stay (LOS) and length of ICU stay (ICU-LOS). We calculated descriptive statistics, built generalized linear mixed models for each outcome and estimated Odds Ratios (95% CI) for the independent categorical variables. The significance level was 5% with Bonferroni correction.
resultsOlder age-groups represented 26.6% of 333,028 ED visits, 40.7% of admissions, 42.7% of ICU admissions and 58% of all deaths. Old-older patients accounted for 5.1% of ED visits, 9.5% of admissions and 10.1% of ICU admissions. Hospitalization, ICU admission and mortality rates increased with older age in both sexes. LOS and ICU-LOS were similar across age-groups. The proportions of visits and admissions attributed to young adults decreased annually, while those of people aged 60 or over increased. The ORs for hospitalization, ICU admission and mortality associated with the old-older group were 3.49 (95% CI = 3.15-3.87), 1.27 (1.15-1.39) and 5.93 (5.29-6.66) respectively, with young adults as the reference.
conclusionsIn tertiary ED, age is an important risk factor for hospitalization and mortality, but not for ICU admission. Old-older people are at the greatest risk and demand further subgroup stratification.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.