[Causes of adolescent visits to the emergency department]

To determine the complaints leading adolescents to a third level emergency department, as well as the distinguishing features between the different groups of complaints.

Retrospective study of the emergency department reports of 170 adolescents selected from the 1,172 adolescents who visited the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu pediatric emergency department in May 1997. We excluded 517 patients with trauma. Statistical analysis was carried out with the chi-square test for qualitative variables and analysis of variance for quantitative variables; differences were accepted as significant at p,0.05.

Eighty-nine patients were female and 81 were male. Median age was 13.8 years. The most frequent discharge diagnoses were abdomen pain in 26 patients, viral illness in 15 and depression-anxiety in 14. Complementary investigations were carried out in 60 patients. One hundred forty-one patients were discharged. Of the 26 patients with psychiatric disorders, 18 were girls and 8 were boys. The proportion of girls was also higher among patients with abdominal and neurological symptoms, although not among patients with organic disorders (p50.03). Most of the patients with psychiatric antecedents were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Ten (11.8%) of the 85 patients with organic complaints were admitted to hospital compared with 13(50%) of the 26 patients with psychiatric disorders (p,0.001).

Adolescents visit emergency departments for a variety of complains. The proportion of psychiatric disorders and non-specific symptoms is high.