• Mehmet Akif Karamercan, Zerrin Defne Dündar, Mehmet Ergin, Oene VAN Meer, Richard Body, Veli-Pekka Harjola, Franck Verschuren, Micheal Christ, Adela Golea, Jean Capsec, Cinzia Barletta, Luis Garcia-Castrillo, Yusuf Ali Altuncı, Yavuz Katırcı, Anne-Maree Kelly, and Said Laribi.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey
• Turk J Med Sci. 2020 Dec 17; 50 (8): 1879-1886.

Background/AimTo describe seasonal variations in epidemiology, management, and short-term outcomes of patients in Europe presenting to an emergency department (ED) with a main complaint of dyspnea.Materials And MethodsAnobservational prospective cohort study was performed in 66 European EDs which included consecutive patients presenting to EDs with dyspnea as the main complaint during 3 72-h study periods. Data were collected on demographics, comorbidities, chronic treatment, prehospital treatment, mode of arrival of patient to ED, clinical signs at admission, treatment in the ED, ED diagnosis, discharge from ED, and in-hospital outcome.ResultsThe study included 2524 patients with a median age of 69 (53–80) years old. Of the patients presented, 991 (39.3%) were in autumn, 849 (33.6%) were in spring, and 48 (27.1%) were in winter. The winter population was significantly older (P < 0.001) and had a lower rate of ambulance arrival to ED (P < 0.001). In the winter period, there was a higher rate for lower respiratory tract infection (35.1%), and patients were more hypertensive, more hypoxic, and more hyper/hypothermic compared to other seasons. The ED mortality was about 1% and, in hospital, mortality for admitted patients was 7.4%.ConclusionThe analytic method and the outcome of this study may help to guide the allocation of ED resources more efficiently and to recommend seasonal ED management protocols based on the seasonal trend of dyspneic patients.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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