Frequency Distribution of Re-Hospitalization and Related Factors in Patients Discharged in 12 Hours from Alzahra Hospital Emergency Service, Isfahan, Iran during 2015 Spring and Summer

Several factors are related to emergency ward overcrowding and re-hospitalization may probably play a considerable role in this problem. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine re-hospitalization frequency and related factors in patients discharged in less than 12 hours from Alzahra hospital emergency service in Isfahan, Iran.
This is an applied cross sectional study of patients who referred to Alzahra hospital emergency department in Isfahan during 2015 spring and summer. In this study, 400 hospital records were randomly selected and studied for re-hospitalization. Demographic and other information including the interval between two referrals, cause of the first and second hospitalization, kind of discharge and other needed information were collected. If the causes of primary and secondary referrals were the same and the interval between the two was also less than one week, it was regarded as incomplete treatment. Finally, the data was analyzed by SPSS software.
Findings: 54 patients (13.5%) had re-hospitalization and the mean interval between the two referrals was 7.4 ± 5.8 days. In 30 of these patients (55.6%), the second referral was in less than 7 days. Re-hospitalization was different based on patients’ age and more frequent in those with less than 50 years. This was also different based on their job, education and types of discharge in the first admit.
A considerable part of patients who referred to emergency ward had re-hospitalization which was related to primary diseases in almost 50% of them and this repeated refers leads to emergency overcrowding and increase of hospital cost. On the other hand, a part of this repeated hospitalization is due to incorrect management of patients in emergency ward which is due to factors related to patients and the hospital. Thus, patient who referred to emergency ward must be managed and diagnosed correctly and receive the required treatment on time.