Emergency Stay Duration of Patients in Emergency Department of A Tertiary Care Hospital in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: Emergency department of a hospital is responsible for providing medical and surgical care to patients arriving at the hospital in need of immediate care. Emergency department is not staffed or equipped to provide prolonged care. Duration of stay in the Emergency department directly affects the quality of patient care. Longer length of stay is associated with Emergency department overcrowding, decline in patient care, increased mortality and decreased patients satisfaction. The main aim of this study is to find the mean stay duration of patients in the emergency department of a tertiary care hospital in Nepal. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study which was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital from Jan 15, 2019 to Jan 30, 2019. Ethical clearance was obtained from Kathmandu Medical College- Institutional Review Committee. The calculated sample size was 587. Consecutive sampling technique was used. The data thus obtained was entered in SPSS version 20 and necessary calculations were done. Results: The mean emergency stay duration was obtained to be 3.18 hours at 95% confidence interval (2.98-3.38 hours) and standard deviation was 2.51 hours. Female had longer mean duration of stay (3.25 hours) compared to male (3.11 hours). The maximum length of stay was 15.3 hours. Three hundred ninety eight (67.8%) patients attending the emergency department were discharged right through the emergency department. Mean duration of stay was longest (5.06 hours) for the referral group. Conclusions: The mean stay duration in Emergency Department of tertiary care hospital in Nepal is getting shorter compared to similar study done previously.