While clinicians feel safe discharging a patient with negative test results, believing that testing did not reveal any cause for emergent treatment or admission, this news may produce the opposite effect in patients due to this diagnostic uncertainty and fear of the unknown cause of their complaints. This lack of diagnostic certainty may lead patients to return to the ED in the hope of finding an answer or out of fear if the symptoms return.The psychological component experienced by patients during their ED encounters is often overlooked and is a potential area of focus for study and improvement. All types of pain appear to increase the odds of ED returns in older adults. Furthermore, pain complaints may be predictive of frequent returns , particularly in those discharged from the ED with a prescription opioid.Patients discharged with prescription opioids who are properly educated on prescription opioid medications may be less likely to experience opioid-related adverse events, potentially minimizing ED recidivismThe presence of certain comorbid conditions such as depression, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer also increase ED recidivism in older adults.Poor mental health, depression, and diabetes were predictive not only of 30-day returns but of frequent returns.A history of psychiatric disorders is a common risk factor identified in several studies with one reporting it as predictive of frequent ED visits.In a study of low-income, home bound older adults with depression, a positive association was found between the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores and frequency of ED visits.Non-cardiac, non-traumatic body pain was the most common reason for recidivism in this older adult population suffering from depression,hydroponic racks highlighting the well-established link between depression and pain. While the literature suggests that specific comorbid conditions are associated with increased recidivism, overall comorbidity burden, as measured by the Charlson Comorbidity Index, is not.

Although intuitively it would seem that patients with high co-morbidity burden would be more likely to return to the ED, La Mantia et al. found no association between Charlson comorbidity scores and ED recidivism.The presence of chronic illness in older adults returning, often frequently, to the ED suggests that at baseline these high-risk patients are sicker with a high burden of comorbidities requiring treatment with multiple medications. This likely explains the reporting of polypharmacy as an independent predictor for 30-day ED returns in older adults.Additionally, recent hospitalization, an indicator of clinical illness severity, was also found to be an independent predictive factor for repeat and frequent ED visits in older adults.Reasons for returning to the ED in this older adult population suffering with chronic illness may stem from the following: seeking reassurance regarding their condition; noncompliance with treatment plans leading to complications; compliance with treatment plans but still developing complications from their condition; not understanding the course of their disease; or inadequate education regarding their discharge plan. Several psychosocial factors are associated with returns visits in older adults. These include lack of social support,marital status, and anxiety.Divorced, separated, or widowed patients have more than double the increased odds for early returns within 30 days; conversely, patients who never married were significantly less likely to return. An explanation proposed by McCusker et al. for this finding is that patients who never married are more self-sufficient and independent than those who are currently or have previously been married. Reporting a perceived lack of social support by the patient was predictive of both 30-day and frequent returns .Patients who are divorced, separated, or widowed may feel they have less social support than their married counterparts to assist in their healthcare needs. Other psychosocial factors reported in the literature include anxiety and substance abuse such as daily alcohol use. Naughton et al. found a 13% increase in the risk of revisits per one unit increase in anxiety scores on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.The association between anxiety and ED recidivism supported by the literature is not surprising, particularly when a patient may not receive a definitive cause for their symptoms.

Patients may experience fear and uncertainty regarding their health leading to anxiety.This coupled with a perceived poor social support system may lead these patients to return to the ED when challenged with new healthcare issues or a perceived failure of current issues to resolve in a timely manner. Daily alcohol use is associated with a decrease in risk of 30-day returns.However, two large retrospective cohort studies of older adults reported that a general history of substance abuse was an independent predictor of frequent ED use.Unfortunately, individual analyses for each of the substances of abuse that were included in these latter studies were not reported, making comparison of these disparate study conclusions difficult. Thus, it is unknown if daily alcohol use might confer a different risk compared to other substances of abuse.The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals can obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions.In older adults, low health literacy has been linked to decreased use of preventative services, higher utilization of acute care settings and resources, and poorer health outcomes.Over 70% of elderly patients are not questioned on their ability to care for themselves prior to discharge; 20% disclose that they do not understand their discharge instructions.This subset of the older adult population may have difficulty comprehending and following their discharge instructions. This may lead some patients to return when their initial complaints do not improve due to uncertainty and lack of comprehension regarding their discharge diagnoses, treatment, and follow-up plans.Several studies indicate poor cognitive health also is an important driver of ED returns.Older-adult patients with cognitive and memory impairment were at an increased risk for 30-day returns, and several studies demonstrated it to be an independent predictor for these returns.However, Ostir et al. found that poor cognitive health and odds of 30-day revisits did not have a significant association.Although, Ostir et al. did find that higher cognitive health scores were linked to lower risk for unplanned ED revisits at 60- and 90-days post-index visit.

The authorsfound that every one-point increase in cognitive score was associated with 24% and 21% decreased odds of 60-day and 90- day revisits to the ED, respectively. The lack of significant association between poor cognitive health and increased 30-day returns by Ostir et al. may be explained by several differences in the study population, which was mostly female , African American , and with cognitive impairment . The average cognitive score of these patients was 4.5 points below standardized norms for persons 65 years and older,35 whereas 76.8% of the study population in the McCusker et al. study had no impairment or only mild cognitive impairment.Only 18.7% of patients in the de Gelder et al. study were found to have cognitive impairement.Since nearly all patients in the Ostir et al. study had cognitive impairment, their findings may be due to the lack of an adequate comparison group. There are several possible explanations why patients with poor cognitive health may be at increased risk for recidivism,indoor garden table including suffering from more complex comorbidities necessitating more frequent healthcare, decreased comprehension of ED discharge diagnoses and instructions, and decreased accuracy in reporting of presenting illness. Patients with delirium superimposed on dementia were found to have lower concordance with their surrogates regarding reason for ED presentation reported to ED staff.This discordance between presenting complaints may lead to insufficient evaluation, missed diagnosis, and/or inappropriate discharge, particularly when the surrogate is not available during the ED evaluation. In addition to cognitive health, poor physical function and poor general health also increase odds of returning within 30 days, and may be an independent predictor for ED recidivism.As physical functioning is a well-established predictor of outcomes among elderly patients, these findings likely reflect the characteristics of a sicker aging population. Several studies have shown that patients, despite access to care , prefer to seek care in the ED compared to the outpatient setting.Reasons include the following: accessibility/convenience; perceived urgency of complaints; inability to wait for scheduled primary care follow-up due to worsening of persistence of symptoms; expedited diagnostic testing; perceived availability of specialists; lack of transportation to primary care office; and wanting a second opinion, among other reasons. In a study of the general ED population, uninsured patients were not found to use the ED more than insured patients, but they use other types of care less. Interestingly, both the insured and uninsured visit the ED at similarly high rates for non-emergent complaints or complaints that can be treated in non-ED settings.As discussed previously, patient fear or uncertainty likely plays an important role in understanding why patients come to the ED. This sense of uncertainty regarding the cause of their symptoms is best illustrated by Castillo et al.’s findings of a rather high rate of older adults returning to the ED for the same primary diagnosis and many seeking care at a different facility , perhaps in hopes of finding a different conclusion from their index ED visit.In a qualitative study of 40 adult patients with chronic cardiovascular disease or diabetes, patient reported driving factors for ED returns included feeling a sense of fear or uncertainty with negative test results and expecting a diagnosis for their symptoms.

Many patients who did not receive a clear diagnosis for their symptoms reported needing to return until a diagnosis was found.In two studies of older adults, patients were less likely to consider that their complaint has been completely resolved and believed they would be less independent after discharge from the ED.A survey of 15 older adults also linked patient perception of ED care with ED recidivism, including believing that the ED was their “only option” and that their symptoms required specialized care only provided in the ED.Several patients also reported that they believed their primary care physician would have advised them to seek care in the ED for their symptoms. Others reported receiving ineffective treatments or instructions at the time of ED discharge. In some cases, this perception may stem from inadequate patient counseling regarding expectations and reasonable goals of care and that can be achieved during the ED visit.The older adult population is a key and significant contributor to ED recidivism and is responsible for a disproportionate amount of healthcare costs. For this reason, older adults have received much attention and study to create interventions aimed at reducing ED recidivism. The unique characteristics of this patient group should be considered when developing strategies to minimize ED returns. The generation of a profile for elderly patients at increased risk for ED returns could identify potential targets for individualized education, counseling, and other interventions to reduce ED over-utilization. Many of the study results discussed in this review were performed outside the U.S. and thus may not be fully generalizable to older adults residing in the U.S. due to different social and cultural influences and healthcare systems. However, when data was available for comparison, studies performed in the U.S. identified many similar risk factors for return visits in older adults as the non-U.S. studies. These similarities suggest that the underlying reasons for ED utilization by older adults may be influenced more by themes related to aging rather than the cultures or healthcare models of individual countries. However, it is important to note that these studies were all performed in highly developed countries with stable economies and well established healthcare systems. Therefore, whether the identified risk factors would remain true in developing countries with fewer healthcare resources is unknown and deserves further study.Further study is needed to understand how each of these areas influences return visits, how they influence each other, and to resolve discrepancies in previously reported findings.Academic medicine faces a challenge on how to balance the objectives of revenue production with compensation of scholarly achievement. Historically, “relative value units” have been used to incentivize physicians to improve clinical productivity, but these systems have neglected to recognize non-clinical achievements, such as those related to teaching, academic leadership roles, or other scholarly activity. Many non-clinical activities do not earn a reduction in clinical hours or financial incentive, which may result in decreased motivation to contribute academically as well as frustration and burnout.