PATIENT AND PHYSICIAN PERCEPTION OF NEED FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL-CARE -A PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

The purpose of this study was to examine patients' and physicians' per ceptions of the urgency of need for emergency medical care, and why pa tients come to the emergency department (ED), Survey instruments were utilized at EDs at an academic tertiary care center and a community ho spital, Physicians' prospective assessment indicated that 65.8% (921 o f 1,400) of the patients seen needed attention within 12 hours, wherea s the patients' perception was that 86.5% (957 of 1,106) needed care w ithin 12 hours, Patients' and physicians' retrospective responses were com pared; in 19.5% (152 of 781) of cases patients rated urgency of t heir condition lower than the physician, These results indicate that p atients and the physicians who treat them, despite the passage of a de cade since a previous report of a similar study and a vastly different patient and physician population, have similar perceptions of the nee d for emergency care, Additionally, patients presented to EDs for a mu ltitude of reasons; however, in strikingly different patient populatio ns, a number of reasons are identified consistently. Copyright (C) 199 6 by W.B. Saunders Company