A retrospective analysis of emergency room visits of oral and maxillofacial surgery patients in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

To investigate the present trends in the causes of patients visiting the emergency room of tertiary care hospital and were treated at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in order to prepare emergency room treatment guidelines. Increasing numbers of patients with damage to the oral and maxillofacial area visit the emergency room for treatment. This retrospective study analyzed 5,104 patients who had visited the emergency room of Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital and treated at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, between August 2012 and July 2017. The patients were divided into groups according to their injury types, such as trauma, infection, bleeding, temporomandibular joint disorders, and others. The number and frequency of patients in each type of injury group were analyzed as percentages (%) using SPSS 23.0 software. The male to female ratio of the patients visiting the emergency room was 1.98:1, with most patients aged below 10 years old. The majority of patients were in the trauma, infection, and bleeding groups. Fractures, especially mandibular fractures, were frequently present in the trauma group. In the oral and maxillofacial area, the results of the frequency, age, and type of injury treated in the emergency room from this study were not significantly different from those of other studies in the past. However, the reasons for the visit are still diverse and complex.