Characteristics and outcomes of older persons attending the emergency department: a retrospective cohort study

Background: The analysis of routinely collected hos-pital data informs the design of specialist services for at-risk older people. Aim: Describe the outcomes of a cohort of older emergency department (ED) attendees and identify predictors of these outcomes. Design: retrospective cohort study. Methods: All patients aged 65 years or older attend-ing an urban university hospital ED in January 2012 were included (N=550). Outcomes were retrospect-ively followed for 12 months. Statistical analyses were based on multivariate binary logistic regression models and classification trees. Results: Of N=550, 40.5 % spent 46h in the ED, but the proportion was 22.4 % among those older than 81 years and not presenting with musculoskel-etal problems/fractures. N=349 (63.5%) were admitted from the ED. A significant multivariate pre-dictor of in-hospital mortality was Charlson comorbidity index [CCI; odds ratio = 1.19, 95 % con-fidence interval: 1.07, 1.34, P=0.002]. Among pa-tients who were discharged from ED without admission or after their first in-patient admission (N=499), 232 (46.5%) re-attended ED within 1 year, with CCI being the best predictor of re-attend