Evaluation of the severity of the complaints in patients presenting to the emergency department with dyspnea: Patient and physician perception

Purpose: various scales are used to determine the severity of dyspnea. in this study we aimed to determine the relationship between patient-physician evaluations by using modified borg, medical research council and visual analog scales. materials and methods:this prospective, observational, cross-sectional study included consecutive patients over 18 years who presented with dyspnea to emergency department. the severity was evaluated by patients with using visual analog and borg scales and by physicians with using visual analog and medical research council scale. results:of the 87 patients, 43 (49.4%) were male an d the mean age was 72.1±12.7 patients’ visual analog scale and borg scores (r=0.978, p≤0.001) and physicians’ visual analog scale and medical research council scores (r=0.928, p≤0.001), and also, patient-physician visual analog scores (r=0.641, p≤0.001) and patients’ borg and physicians’ medical research council scores (r=0.632, p≤0.001) were positively corelated. the patientphysician visual analog scores were found positively corelated even in age lower 65 years (r=0.413, p=0.032) and age over 65 years groups (r=0.722, p≤0.001). physicians’ and patients’ visual analog scores were positive corelated in male (r=0.730, p≤0.001) and female (r=0.500, p≤0.001). physicians’ medical research council and patients’ borg scores were significant positive corelated in the evaluation of male (r=0.711, p≤0.001) and female ( r=0.542, p≤0.001). conclusion:visual analog scale, borg and medical research council scales which were used to evaluate the severity of dyspnea in the emergency department are corelated with each other. however, the correlation power is lower in the group of age lower than 65 years and female patients.