Retrospective analysis of electronic medical records of Syrian immigrants admitted to a training and research hospital in Turkey

Abstract

Aim: The Syrian citizens mass-migrated mostly to Turkey along with Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq because of internal conflicts. Having access to health care is of great importance in such crisis situations. The aim of this study is to reveal the characteristics and the frequency of admission to health services of Syrian refugee patients, who have admitted to a tertiary hospital in Ankara. Material and Methods: The patients of Syrian nationality who have admitted to Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital between 03.2014-02.2017 were included irrespective of their age in this descriptive retrospective study. Medical records were reviewed for available information such as the registered province, age, gender, number of patients, outpatient clinic, number of hospital admissions and emergency applications, the frequency of the diagnosis international classification of diseases (ICD) code, surgery status, surgery type, and the frequency of imaging requests. Results: The total number of Syrian citizens was 2,205. The top three ICD diagnosis codes are "Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99)", "Factors influencing health status and contact with health services (Z00-Z99)" and "Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (M00-M99)". The most frequented clinic was the emergency medicine. Conclusion: Most of the applications are the problems that could be diagnosed and treated in primary care. It is thought to be more effective that Syrian patients could be followed closely by family physicians, in term of patients and cost.