AbstractBackground Social Emergency Admissions (SEA) are unplanned hospitalisations due to acute social crises without medical indications. This study quantified and characterised SEA. Methods We reviewed unplanned internal medicine admissions to 3 hospitals in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 2023. Admissions considered as SEA had ≥1 social stressor documented but no medical indication for hospitalisation. SEA were compared descriptively with other admissions. Results Of 445 reviewed cases, 39 (8.8 %) were SEAs, corresponding to 6.7 % of all unplanned internal medicine admissions via emergency department. SEA could be categorised into 3 clusters: informal caregiver breakdown (22; 56.4 %), isolation/environmental neglect (14; 35.9 %), failure of formal care structures (3; 7.7 %). SEA patients were older (median 84 interquartile range 75-88.5 vs. 72 56.25–82 years), stayed longer (6 4–9 vs. 4 2–7 days), and more often received professional home support (35.9 % vs. 7.9 %) and care from relatives (53.8 % vs. 10.6 %). They were also more frequently multimorbid (≥2 comorbidities: 82.1 % vs. 64.3 %) and showed higher prevalence of electrolyte disorders (41.0 % vs. 19.5 %), weight loss (20.5 % vs. 5.2 %), alcohol abuse (17.9 % vs. 2.7 %), and dementia (17.9 % vs. 3.9 %). Conclusion This multicentre study provides the first quantitative assessment of SEA in internal medicine, with 6.7 % of unplanned admissions meeting a structured SEA definition and involving older, more multimorbid patients with longer hospital stays. SEA constitute a distinct subgroup of emergency admissions driven by identifiable social risk clusters rather than acute medical urgency.
Baumgartner et al. (Sun,) studied this question.