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Investigation of Consultations Requested by Dermatology Inpatient
ABSTRACT
Background:
Whereas dedicated dermatology wards have been closed in some countries, they continue to exist in other countries. Inpatient consultations requested from dermatologists have been investigated widely. However, those requested by dermatologists have been taken into consideration only in a few studies.
Objective:
In this study, it was purposed to investigate such consultations especially in context of diagnoses, reasons, and consulting specialities.
Methods:
Admissions to a dermatology ward of a tertiary hospital were retrospectively analyzed for a period from January 2019 to August 2021.
Results:
We found 1712 (1259 medical and 453 surgical) consultations belonging to 548 admissions with a median length of stay of 15.1 days Whereas number of consultations per admission was not influenced by patient's sex, it was positively correlated by patient's age and length of stay. Highest numbers were observed in admissions with a diagnosis of bullous pemphigoid, leg ulcer, lupus erythematosus, pustular psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa, and pemphigus. Reasons of consultations were, in a descending order, management of comorbidity, evaluation for drug precaution, investigation for etiology, evaluation for systemic involvement, taking treatment advice, obtaining biopsy, and differential diagnosis.
Conclusions:
Our findings that number of consultations per admission was high and the most common reason of consultations was comorbidity indicate that, practically, there are no more pure dermatological patients. Therefore, if dedicated dermatology wards will continue to exist, in order to lower number of consultations so length of stay, dermatologist should be trained in a manner so that they have more knowledge about common comorbidities.
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