Acil Serviste Geriatrik Psikiyatri Hastalarının Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Objective: Besides the known co-morbidities, emergency department (ED) applications reveal an increasing trend due to the complications originating from the increase in the elderly population in the society. In addition, ED applications with psychiatric symptoms also continuously rise in numbers. Along these lines, in the current study, we focus on the fundamental causes associated with the ED applications of geriatric patients (> 64 years old ) with psychiatric symptoms. Materials and Methods: The patients who applied to our ED with psychiatric symptoms between February 2019 and August 2019 and who had a psychiatry consultation were evaluated retrospectively. The demographic data, co-morbidities, known psychiatric diseases, admission symptoms, and outcome diagnoses of the patients were recorded. The results were evaluated statistically. Results: A total of 43.2 % of male patients who were over the age of 65, and 43.3 % of female patients were admitted to our ED with the most common complaint of anxiety. No significant relations were detected between suicide attempts and the presence of psychiatric disease in elderly patients (p = 0.93). Delirium was the most common diagnosis in the geriatric population without any known psychiatric disease (n = 10). All patients were diagnosed with depression, delirium, and dementia, respectively, after the emergency psychiatric evaluation. Conclusion: Healthcare costs and morbidity-mortality rates of the senior patients with psychiatric symptoms can be significantly diminished upon the diagnosis of depression, delirium, and dementia via psychiatric examinations.