Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, is, to Muslims, the holiest month of the year. During this month, young, able-bodied Muslims are commanded to abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk.
The objective of the study is to analyze emergency department (ED) patients flowduring the holy month of Ramadanand compare it to non-Ramadan days. We hypothesized that Ramadan would affect EDattendance by altering peak hours, and expected a dip in attendance around evening time (after sunset).
In Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, a retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary hospital (2014-2016). The data was strategically separated and patient presence was analyzed year-wise, weekday basis and based on the hourly presence of the patients in the EDof the chosen hospital.
A total of 45,116 ED’spatient visits were analyzed over the mentionedstudy period. There was a difference in the total volume of Ramadan and non-Ramadan patient between the years 2014-2016. In all of the years, the highest percentage of visits was during the non-Ramadan days and this had a small fluctuation from 53% in 2014 to 52% in 2016 (p=0.001).It was observed from the collected data that 53% of the patients were present in the hospital during the fasting hours whereas 47% were present during the non-fasting hours (p<0.001).
We were successfully able to derive a pattern from the data of 3 years in relation to the patient flow in the EDof the hospital. Moreover, we observed the difference in the patient arrival pattern between the Ramadan and non-Ramadan days in the hospital along with the predominant categorization of patient chief complaints. Our study identified a unique pattern of EDhourly visits during Ramadan.
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