Table 2.

Characteristics of ED use in the last year of life for the dementia and comparative cohorts.

In last year of life	Dementia cohort, N = 5261		Comparative cohort, N = 2865		χ2
	n	%	n	%	p value
Any ED visit
No	1421	27.0	679	23.7	0.001
Yes	3840	73.0	2186	76.3
Median number of ED visits (IQR)	1	0–3	1	1–3
Mean number of ED visits (SD)	1.9	2.1	2.0	2.3
Range of number of ED visits; min. and max.	0	43	0	29
Total number of days in ED (% of all days)	9781	0.5	5827	0.6	<0.001
Hospital admissions from ED	6665	68.1	4112	70.6	0.002
Days in ED by quarters of last year of life
Days 1–91	1470	0.3	763	0.3	0.281
Days 92–181	1658	0.4	973	0.4	0.064
Days 182–273	1961	0.4	1261	0.5	<0.001
Days 274–death	4692	1.0	2830	1.1	<0.001
Triage category
Resuscitation: immediate	349	3.6	167	2.9	<0.001
Emergency: within 10 min	1622	16.6	1132	19.4
Urgent: within 30 min	4079	41.7	2502	42.9
Semi-urgent: within 60 min	3399	34.8	1739	29.8
Non-urgent: within 120 min	293	3.0	247	4.2
Other	39	0.4	39	0.7
Number and proportion of ED visits that resulted in hospital admission by triage category
Resuscitation: immediate	279	79.9	136	81.4	0.689
Emergency: within 10 min	1335	82.1	956	84.5	0.138
Urgent: within 30 min	3001	73.6	1925	76.9	0.002
Semi-urgent: within 60 min	1922	56.6	1004	57.7	0.416
Non-urgent: within 120 min	94	32.1	57	23.1	0.020
10 most frequent ED presenting symptomsa for dementia cohort
Shortness of breath	711	9.0	707	16.4	<0.001
Lower leg injury	526	6.7	134	3.1
Altered conscious state	410	5.2	67	1.6
Chest pain	375	4.8	393	9.1
Head injury (includes closed)	305	3.9	62	1.4
Confusion/altered mental state	299	3.8	74	1.7
Abdominal pain	259	3.3	277	6.4
Collapse	247	3.1	116	2.7
Fall	234	3.0	72	1.7
Nausea/vomiting	134	1.7	99	2.3

ED: emergency department; IQR: inter-quartile range; SD: standard deviation.

^aSymptom data were only available for 80% of ED visits due to hospital coding practices.