SRINAGARIND MEDICAL JOURNAL

Volume 35, No. 01, Month JANUARY, Year 2020, Pages 72 - 78

The appropriateness of post-exposure management in patients at risk to rabies in emergency room, srinagarind hospital

Thapanawong Mitsungnern, Thawatchai Saetia, Dhanu Gaysornsiri

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Background and Objective: Rabies is zoonosis with high mortality rates. The post-exposure management of patients at risk impact to spreading in human. So we aimed to study the percentage of appropriateness in post-exposure management of patients at risk to rabies by using 2013 Rabies practice guideline of Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. Material and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study enrolled patients who visited Srinagarind hospital between January to December 2014 by using International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problem 10th revision (ICD-10) code T14.1, W50-W55, Z24.2. Results: After searching by ICD-10 codes, 2009 patients were enrolled and only 960 cases met our criteria. Five hundred thirty six cases (55.8%) were women. The average age was 35.8 years old and average duration from exposure to medical contact was 13.4 hours. The most common carriers were dog (66.0%) and the characteristics of exposure were biting at leg or hand and 461 wounds (48.0%) were level III that classified by World Health Organization (WHO) category. But there were only 806 cases that contained enough data in medical record to decide appropriateness in post-exposure management. Finally, we found the overall appropriate management was 48.3%, appropriate rabies vaccine was 95.2%, and appropriate rabies immunoglobulin was 91.1%. Conclusion: The post-exposure management of patients at risk to rabies by 2013 Rabies practice guideline was proper at 48.3%. Emergency physicians need to update the post-exposure management of patient at risk to rabies and complete the important data in medical record for patient safety

Keywords

The post-exposure prophylaxis Rabies Appropriateness Practice guideline

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