Clin Exp Emerg Med.
2018 Mar;5(1):7-13. 10.15441/ceem.16.180.
Effect of alcohol use on emergency department length of stay among minimally injured patients based on mechanism of injury: multicenter observational study
- Affiliations
-
- 1Laboratory of Emergency Medical Services, Seoul National University Hospital Biomedical Research Institute, Seoul, Korea. juok.park@gmail.com
- 2Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
- 3Department of Emergency Medicine, Hallym Univertisy Dongtan Sacred Hospital, Hwaseong, Korea.
- 4Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
- KMID: 2409813
- DOI: http://doi.org/10.15441/ceem.16.180
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of alcohol use on emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS) among minimally injured patients by mechanism of injury.
METHODS
This was a retrospective study of injury surveillance data for injured patients (except poisoning), aged over 18 years, discharged home from the ED, and treated at seven academic EDs in Korea during 2008 to 2012. Patients were divided into alcohol-related and alcohol-unrelated groups based on self-report. We used multivariable quantile regression models for the analysis and adjusted covariates including age, sex, consciousness status, severity of injury, emergency medical service use, the season, day and time of visit, and hospital. To determine if there were different effects of alcohol use across mechanism of injury, all analyses were stratified by each mechanism.
RESULTS
Among 192,200 patients, 95,807 patients were analyzed. The number of participants in the alcohol-related group was 16,249 (17.0%). In the multivariable quantile regression model, the alcohol-related group had significantly longer ED LOS at the 10th (7 minutes; 95% confidence interval [CI], 6 to 8), 50th (21 minutes; 95% CI, 19 to 23), and 90th (81 minutes; 95% CI, 74 to 87) percentiles when compared to the alcohol-unrelated group. The effect of alcohol use on increased ED LOS was most prominent in motor vehicle injuries.
CONCLUSION
We found that alcohol use was associated with increased emergency ED LOS. Furthermore, if we limited our attention to the effect of alcohol use on the number of patients, the burden of alcohol use on the ED would have been underestimated.
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