Agbo PS
The Usmanu Danfodiyo university teaching hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto receives patients from Sokoto and surrounding states of the north-western region of Nigeria. Being faced with increasing population and dwindling finances, an idea of admission pattern into the accident and emergency (A and E) department will greatly enhance policy formulations to meet the challenges of providing quality health care. To describe the admission pattern into the A and E department of UDUTH, Sokoto. A retrospective descriptive study in which the case notes of all patients seen at the accident and emergency department of UDUTH between 1st January and 31st December 2011 were reviewed. The results were analyzed using windows SPSS statistics 17.0. A total of 5,546 patients were seen. 3,302 (54.8%) were males and 2,504 (45.2%) were females giving a male: female ratio of 1.2:1. The age range was from New born – 99 years old. The median age group was 20 – 39 years. There were more medical patients compared to surgical patients in ratio 7.5:1. 4,816 (87%) medical cases were seen while 632(11%) surgical cases were seen (P value was < 0.001). The commonest medical emergencies were malaria 1,509 (27.2%), Peptic ulcer disease (PUD) 955 (17.2%) and gastroenteritis 525 (9.5%), while the commonest surgical emergencies included acute appendicitis 127 (2.3%), head injury 101 (1.8%) and extremity fractures 75 (1.4%). The highest admissions occurred in the month of June, 893(16.1%) while the lowest admission was recorded in January, 200(3.6%). 92(1.7%) patients died while on admission in the department while 15(0.3%) patients were brought in dead bringing the total mortality to 107(2.0%). Medical emergencies constitute 87% of admissions into the A and E department of UDUTH while surgical admissions constitute 11%.
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