Use of Diagnostic Tests in Patients with non Traumatic Acute Abdominal Pain Referred to the Emergency Department

Abstract

Background and Objectives Non-traumatic acute abdominal pain is one of the most common complaints in patients referred to emergency department. To make diagnosis decision several diagnostic tests such as WBC count, urine analysis, and abdominal sonography are usually ordered which disturb emergency department, staff and force significant cost to patient and are time consuming. This study was done for determining the tests frequency for diagnosis of patients presenting in ED of Hazrat e rasoul hospital with non traumatic acute abdominal pain that had been dismissed from hospital in comparison to previous studies to find whether we can omit some unnecessary tests. Methods Study method was descriptive-cross sectional. By sequential sampling, the data of 400 dismissed patients with non-traumatic acute abdominal pain were gathered and interpreted by statistical descriptive methods. Results Participants were 29-22 years old, 40.8% male and 59.2% female. WBC had been ordered in 92% of cases. Urine analysis and abdominal sonography had been ordered 91.7% and 95.5% respectively. Frequency of CBC ordering was similar to previous studies while was 2 and 4 fold more for UA and abdominal sonography in comparison to previous studies. Conclusion These results necessitate revising the diagnostic tests for non-traumatic acute abdominal pain to omit unnecessary tests.

Keywords

• abdominal pain
• diagnostic tests
• emergenciesө