Abstract
Objective: To know the most common ENT diseases which were presented to King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital, ENT emergency department in the year 2012, and the most common presentation in each ENT subspecialty and to evaluate the triage time
Design: Retrospective study
Subjects: A total of 1937 patients who presented to the emergency department
Setting: ENT Emergency Department, King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Interventions: Information taken from emergency department database records
Main outcome measures: We considered the following parameters: age, nationality, gender, shift time, triage time, diagnosis and final plan.
Results: Of the 1937 patients who presented to the emergency department, 92.6% of them were Saudis. Around 77.8% of the patients were seen in less than 30 minutes, while 16.4% were seen in 30 - 60 min. The most common diseases presented to the emergency department were nasal trauma and epistaxis (11.2% and 10.3%, respectively). The subspecialty presentation were as follows: otology (38%), rhinology (35.7%), pharyngolaryngology (9.6%), and head and neck (6.1%).
Conclusions: The most common otolaryngology, head, and neck diseases presented to ENT emergency department was nasal trauma. Otology represents the most common subspecialty and most of the patients were seen in less than 30 minutes.