Assessment of patients‟ readiness for hospital discharge and associated factors among medical emergency patients in black lion specialized teaching hospital adult emergency department, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ,January 2020G.C.
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Date
2020-01
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Introduction: Improving health institution discharge processes, decreasing readmissions and
emergency department visits after discharge is on the countrywide issue for health care
reform and health facility-based improvement tasks, which are unplanned, adverse,
potentially avoidable, and costly outcomes of hospitalization caused by low patient readiness
for hospital discharge. A patient's readiness for Hospital Discharge is defined as a patient‟s
assessment of their own preparedness for discharge and their ability to cope with their illness
at home. However, a little is known about whether emergency medical patients sufficiently
prepared for discharge to home after acute care at intermediate phase of recovery.
Objective: To assess patients‟ readiness for discharge and associated factors in the
emergency department of black lion specialized teaching hospital Addis Ababa Ethiopia
from February 17 to July 2020G.C
Method: An institutional-based cross-sectional prospective study was conducted and all
patients with a diagnosis of medical conditions, and ready for discharge during the study
period were included and the collected data was evaluated with SPSS version 25 software.
Results; the total number of respondents was 159; the mean age of the study subjects is 49
with a standard deviation of ± 16.7 the majority of the patients 106 (66.7%) reported low
RHD scores (<7.0), although 53 (33.3%) reported RHD scores (≥7.0). The overall patientRHD
score was 6.89 ± 0.92. Increased age AOR 16.34 (CI 5.4, 49.02) and high Charlson
comorbidity index AOR 24.1, (CI 4.1, 44.2) are contributing factors for low patient RHD
scores. On the other hand, having a spouse as a primary caregiver was predictive of greater
RHD (AOR 0.31, CI 0.002, 0.56).
Conclusions and recommendations; the finding indicate most patients are being discharged
without being ready and most are not getting any discharge education. Paying attention to
adequate discharge planning, providing appropriate discharge education is essential to
improve patient outcome.
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Keywords
Emergency department, Readiness, Patient discharge