Circadian patterns of patient symptoms in a tertiary university emergency department: a single-centre retrospective analysis

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate emergency patient care from a chronophysiological perspective, examining circadian variations in symptom presentations and physiological parameters.Single-centre retrospective analysis. DESIGN: SETTING: Department of Emergency Medicine, Clinical Centre, University of Pécs, Hungary (August 2022 to August 2023). PARTICIPANTS: . For hypertension, random proportionally stratified sampling was performed (n=120). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcomes were the circadian distribution of emergency presentations across 14 symptom categories and their variation by time of day, age and sex. Secondary outcomes included diurnal variation in hypertension-related cases, examining blood pressure, pulse rate, triage time and medication use. RESULTS: Cardiovascular cases peaked between 09:00 and 12:00 (p