Prevalence of renal colic in the emergency departments: A multi-center study

Since kidney calculi are the most common cause of kidney failure, in this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of renal colic and its risk factors in the patients referred to two emergency departments during a year.

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in two hospitals in Kerman city, south-east of Iran, during one-year from March 2019 to March 2020. All the archives of the two emergency departments were reviewed, and the required information was recorded in a checklist. The data was analyzed in SPSS 20 software.

A total of 504 patients were included in the study. The prevalence of renal colic was 0.5%. Most of the patients (58.5%) had an age between 19 and 39 years, and the majority of them (60.1%) were males and had a BMI above 25. A family history of renal colic was reported in 68.7% of the patients, and 63.9% had either hypertension or diabetes. Most of the patients consumed less than 3 liters of water per day. The highest referrals were seen in autumn (31.5%) and summer (27.4%).

Considering the relationship between renal colic and age, sex, BMI, occupation, a family history of the disease, the presence of underlying diseases, the amount and type of drinking water, and the season of referral, it is recommended to control these risk factors to reduce the incidence of the disease.