The etiologies of altered level of consciousness in the emergency department

Abstract

Background: New-onset altered level of consciousness (ALC) is a common condition in patients visiting the emergency department (ED). We evaluated the clinical characteristics, causes, and prognosis of adult patients presenting with ALC at an ED of a university hospital to determine the etiologies, outcomes, and destinations of these patients.

Methods: The medical records of patients with ALC who visited the ED of a university hospital from February 2019 to January 2020 were reviewed. The cause of ALC and its classification were carefully decided by agreement through a discussion among board-certified clinicians in emergency medicine, neurology, and internal medicine.

Results: Of the 731 patients with ALC in the ED, whose mean age was 68.81±16.40 years, most were in their 80s (198, 27.09%). The most common etiology of ALC was systemic infection (30.78%), followed by metabolic causes (21.07%) and stroke (18.19%). Extracerebral and intracerebral etiologies of ALC in the ED accounted for 51.85% and 26.68% of the cases, respectively. The overall mortality of ALC in the ED was 17.67%. The largest number of ALC cases of 443 patients, i.e., 60.6% of all ALC patients in the ED, visited within the time zone of 07:00–19:00.

Conclusion: This study identified the extra-cerebral etiologies as the major causes of ALC in the ED.