• Clara Thomas, Martin Möckel, Julia Searle, Jörn Ole Vollert, Rajan Somasundaram, and Anna Slagman.
• Department for Pediatric Cardiology and Intensive Care, Medical Hospital of the University of Munich, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Munich.
• Eur J Emerg Med. 2021 Aug 1; 28 (4): 299-305.

Background And ImportanceDifferences between men and women visiting the emergency department (ED) with nonsurgical complaints have mostly been investigated in small, diagnosis-based subpopulations.ObjectiveThis study investigated sex-differences in an unselected cohort of nonsurgical ED patients.DesignSecondary data of all patients attending two EDs of the Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin collected in the framework of their medical evaluation was reviewed.Settings And ParticipantsWithin a 1-year-period all 34 333 adult internal patients presenting to one of the two EDs were included and analysed.Outcomes Measure And AnalysesSex-stratified descriptive analysis of the in-hospital course and outcome of the ED patients was performed as primary endpoint. Admission data, ED processes and diagnoses were analyzed as secondary endpoints.Main ResultsA total of 51.2% of all patients were women. Women were slightly younger (median 56 years vs. men 58 years; P < 0.001) and presented more frequently with abdominal pain and headache. Men rather showed chest pain and dyspnea. Accordingly, women had more gastroenterological diseases; men were more often diagnosed with cardiological and pneumological diseases. Women were less frequently admitted for inpatient treatment [35.3 vs. men 43.7%; difference 8.4 percentage points (95% confidence interval (CI), 7.3-9.4)] and intensive care treatment [5.8 vs. men 9.0%; difference 3.2 percentage points (95% CI, 2.7-3.8)]. Inpatient-mortality did not show significant sex differences [4.6 women vs. 4.8% men; difference 0.2 percentage points (95% CI, -0.6 to 0.8)].ConclusionsThere are significant differences in characteristics, symptoms, diagnoses and clinical course between men and women. Further investigations could identify causes and measures like sex-specific algorithms for ED-work processes.Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

10 keywords...

hide…