Analysis of the medical consultations performed at the Hospital Central de Mendoza’s Dermatology Service

Abstract

Background: Dermatology has classically been considered a medical specialty confined to the ambulatory scope. Nevertheless, patients admitted frequently present skin conditions that can be associated or not to a systemic disease.

Objective: To analyze the medical consultation performed at the Hospital Central de Mendoza’s Dermatology Service.

Design: Observational, analytical, longitudinal section study.

Materials and methods: in this study were included 425 medical consultations from hospitalized and ambulatory patients, that required urgent dermatological examination, from the 1st of February to the 31st of August, 2019.

Results: 266 (62.59%) medical consultations from ambulatory patients requiring urgent dermatological examination were analyzed, and from them, 228 (85.71%) were referred from the medical on-call service. 159 (37.41%) consisted in hospitalized patients’ consultations, from which 74 (46.54%) were requested by the Internal Medicine Service. The infectious skin diseases were the most frequent (38.82%), followed by the inflammatory skin diseases (37.65%). Skin lesions associated with systemic diseases were more frequent in the inpatients (p = 0,003). From the total of medical consultations, 230 (54.11%) had a presumptive diagnosis, where 127 (55.21%) of the cases matched the definitive diagnosis. Although clinicians made more accurate presumptive diagnoses than surgeons (30.95% vs. 23.40%, respectively), there was no statistically significant difference between them (p = 0.28).

Conclusion: Dermatological examination facilitates the diagnosis and patient’s management in the hospital context.