ArticleBMC emergency medicine2021
A dangerously underrated entity? Non-specific complaints at emergency department presentation are associated with utilisation of less diagnostic resources.
Article in BMC emergency medicine, 2021. 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 abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Utilization of acute medical services in general practice: a retrospective routine data analysis.International journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Patients with Non-Specific Complaints in Emergency Departments: A Growing Patient Safety Concern in an Aging Population with Multimorbidity.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Minimizing the Risk of Diagnostic Errors in Acute Care for Older Adults: An Interdisciplinary Patient Safety Challenge.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Review
- Emergency department utilization and presenting chief complaints by Veterans living with dementia.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2023Observational
- An analysis of patients with a chief complaint of difficulty moving.Journal of rural medicine : JRM · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPatients presenting with non-specific complaints (NSC), such as generalised weakness, or feeling unwell, constitute about 20% of emergency care consultations. In contrast to patients presenting with specific symptoms, these patients experience more hospitalisations, longer stays in hospital and even higher mortality. However, little is known about the actual resources spent on patients with NSC in the emergency department (ED).
methodsWe have conducted a retrospective analysis from January 1st, 2013 until December 31st, 2017 in a Swiss tertiary care ED to assess the impact of NSC on the utilisation of diagnostic resources in adult patients with highlyurgent or urgent medical complaints.
resultsWe randomly selected 1500 medical consultations from our electronic health record database: The majority of patients (n = 1310, 87.3%) presented with a specific complaint; n = 190 (12.7%) with a NSC. Univariate analysis showed no significant difference in the utilisation of total diagnostic resources in the ED [specific complaints: 844 (577-1313) vs. NSC: 778 (551-1183) tax points, p = 0.092, median (interquartile range)]. A backward selection logistic regression model was adjusted for the identified covariates (age, diabetes, cerebrovascular and liver disease, malignancy, past myocardial infarction, antihypertensive, antithrombotic or antidiabetic medication, night or weekend admission and triage category). This identified a significant association of NSC with lower utilisation of ED diagnostic resources [geometric mean ratio (GMR) 0.91, 95% CI: 0.84-0.99, p = 0.042].
conclusionsNon-specific complaints (NSC) are a frequent reason for emergency medicine consultations and are associated with lower utilisation of diagnostic resources during ED diagnostic testing than with specific complaints.
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