Who is in the Hospital Emergency Department? Descriptive study of the variability of specialties in the Emergency Department

Objective: Giving the absence of specialized training to work as a physician in the Emergency Department in Spain, the aim of the study was to describe the variability of specialties in these departments nationally, by regions and hospital complexity.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out through a survey addressed to Emergency Chiefs of Spanish public hospitals, 65 of whom answered between January 2018 and September 2019. Descriptive and correlative analyzes of the variables were performed, assuming those with p<0.05 as statistically significant.

Results: 1,706 emergency physicians of 29 different specialties were described, of which 1,336 (78.31%) were Family and Community Medicine specialists. Different number of specialties among regions and hospitals of different complexities were described. 98.46% of surveyed chiefs demanded specialized formation on Emergency Medicine. Direct correlations were found between the complexity of the hospital and the number of specialties in the Emergency Department (r=0.2921, CI: 0.04445-0.5059; p<0.05); the complexity of the hospital and the number of emergency physicians (r=0.69, CI: 0.5310-0.8020; p<0.0001), as well as between the number of emergency physicians and the number of different specialties in the Emergency Department (r=0.3901, CI: 0.1543-0.5838; p<0.005).

Conclusions: Physicians of 29 different specialties were described working in the Emergency Departments. The variability of specialties changed among regions and hospitals of different complexities. Heads of Emergency Departments agreed on the need for specialized formation on Emergency Medicine.

CITATION  Rev Esp Salud Publica. 2021 Apr 19;95:e202104055