A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of
Master of Science in Medicine in Emergency Medicine.
Johannesburg, 2015 / Aim: To determine any association between the lunar synodic or anomalistic
months and the nature and volume of emergency department patient consultations
and hospital admissions from the emergency department (ED).
Design: A retrospective, descriptive study.
Setting: All South African EDs of a private hospital group.
Patients: All patients consulted from 01 January 2005 to 31 December 2010.
Methods: Data was extracted from monthly records and statistically evaluated,
controlling for calendric variables. Lunar variables were modelled with volumes of
differing priority of hospital admissions and consultation categories including;
trauma, medical, paediatric, work injuries, obstetrics and gynaecology, intentional
self harm, sexual assault, dog bites and total ED consultations.
Main Results: No significant differences were found in all anomalistic and most
synodic models with the consultation categories. Small but significant increases
were found with a small number of synodic models around full moon with some
categories, P2 medical, total paediatric consultations and total admissions.
Significant decreases in admissions, particulary total admissions, were found
around perigee. The effect sizes of all significant lunar associations were smaller
than those of the calendric variables.
Conclusions: Most comparisons demonstrated no lunar association. Small but
significant associations were demonstrated around full moon with some synodic
models. A number of anomalistic admission models demonstrated small but
significant decreases in admissions at perigee.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/19969 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Futcher, Grant Dudley |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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