Emergencias : revista de la Sociedad Espanola de Medicina de Emergencias
Association between the emergency department length of stay in patients requiring hospitalization and in-hospital mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis
By Di Paolo CL, Boixeda C, Rangel C and 3 others.
Abstract
Objective
To assess the association between the emergency department length of stay (EDLOS) and in-hospital mortality through an updated systematic review and meta-analysis.
Methods
A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 recommendations to identify studies published between January 2022 and December 2025 evaluating the association between EDLOS and in-hospital mortality. The identified studies were combined with those included in a former systematic review covering the period up to January 15, 2022. Searches were conducted across PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Cochrane using the same search strategy. Studies including exclusively patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) were excluded. Separate meta-analyses were performed for each cutoff used to define prolonged EDLOS, along with an over all meta-analysis including all studies using a cutoff $ 6 hours; when the same study reported several cutoffs, only the longest cutoff was considered.