Clinicodemographic Profile of Patients Presenting with Acute Abdominal Pain in the Emergency Medicine Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

ABSTRACT Objectives: Data on acute abdominal pain in Indian emergency departments are limited. We described the demographic profile, disposition, diagnostic spectrum and unscheduled return visits of adults presenting with acute abdominal pain, and compared them with a large European series. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included all adult (>18 years) emergency department visits recorded with the complaint of abdominal pain at a tertiary care teaching hospital between February and July 2025. Age, sex, disposition and final emergency department diagnosis were extracted from the emergency register. Diagnoses were grouped using the categories of a published Italian series of 5,340 patients. Return visits within 5 and 30 days were identified by hospital registration number (MRD No.). The primary outcome was hospital admission. Results: We analysed 1,087 visits by 995 patients. Mean age was 45.9 ± 17.4 years and 53.7% were women. Overall, 515 visits resulted in hospital admission (47.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 44.4–50.4), including 76 (7.0%) intensive care admissions. Age ≥65 years (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.87; 95% CI, 1.35–2.58) and male sex (aOR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.07–1.74) were independently associated with admission. A final diagnosis was recorded for 110 visits; the leading groups were gastritis/peptic ulcer (29.1%), oncologic pain (10.0%), biliary disease (8.2%) and pancreatitis (7.3%). Return visits occurred in 2.3% of patients within 5 days and 5.2% within 30 days. Compared with the European series, the sex distribution was similar, patients were younger, and the admission rate was 30.8 percentage points higher (95% CI, 27.7–33.9). Conclusion: Nearly half of the adults presenting with acute abdominal pain to this Indian tertiary emergency department were admitted, almost three times the European rate, with older age and male sex as independent predictors. Systematic recording of final emergency department diagnoses is required to characterise the diagnostic spectrum reliably. Keywords: Abdominal pain; Emergency service, hospital; Patient admission; Patient readmission; Epidemiology; India