EPIDEMIOLOGIC ANALYSIS OF THE "DIZZY" PATIENTS ADMITTED TO KUTAHYA UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES EVLIYA CELEBI TRAINING AND RESEARCH HOSPITAL IN 2018
1Kütahya Sağlık Bilimleri Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Evliya Çelebi Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Kulak Burun Boğaz Hastalıkları, Kütahya, Türkiye Introduction-Objective: The terms of "dizziness" that defines disturbance of space orientation and "vertigo", a movement illusion are frequently used interchangeably. We herewith aimed to analyse annual demographic/epidemiologic vertigo/dizziness data of the Otolaryngology, Neurology and Emergency Medicine (EM) Departments and thus contribute to the optimization of approach to dizzy patients.Material-Method: The number of the patients with vertigo as the main/additional diagnosis in 2018 with vertigo statistics of the Otolaryngology, Neurology and EM Departments of the Kütahya University of Health Sciences Evliya Çelebi Training and Research Hospital constituted this study's bases. Demographics of the patients, their vertigo sub-diagneses, in-patient admissions, audio-vestibular and imaging quantities were retrieved from the records.
Results: 11779(%3.34) of 351942 patients, who admitted to the Kütahya University of Health Sciences Evliya Çelebi Training and Research Hospital in 2018 received vertigo diagnosis/sub-diagnoses. Of those, the admissions to the Otolaryngology, Neurology and EM Departments were 1023 (%16.78), 5427(%49.6) and 1577(%20.77) respectively. The most frequent imaging was cranial CT (1314; %30.3) and the department that ordered most imaging was Neurology(2162; %49.8). Audio-vestibulometric tests were solely ordered by Otolaryngology department; the numbers of hospitalized patients into the Neurology and Otolaryngology departments were 53 and 60 respectively; the numbers of vertigo sub-diagnoses of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, Meniere's disease, vestibular neuritis were 75 (%0.06), 42 (%0.04), 11(%0.01) respectively.
Conclusions: The results of the study confirmed the high prevalence of vertigo/dizziness. Vertigo is a symptom and vertiginous diseases have separate ICD-10 codes. We concluded that; coding of the these diseases were negligent, imaging numbers were excessive, indications for some imaging were sub-optimal and vestibulometry was not utilized adequately for vertiginous patients.
Keywords : Vertigo, dizziness, non-vertiginous dizziness, epidemiology, imaging