3 hours longer than those who had never been depressed. Though such a finding should be interpreted as very preliminary, it does give us greater confidence in the primary finding of the study, that depression is associated with longer ED LOS. It also suggests that there may be a more

general depressive presentation, as evinced by a history of depression, that may influence patients’ ED experience. Possible explanations for our findings are that depression may influence how ACS patients present in the ED, their reporting of symptoms, their ability to recruit a family member or friend to accompany and support them, or their interactions with medical staff. At this stage, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical however, such explanations are speculation, as more research must be conducted. While previous research has shown that posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with longer patient delay to ED presentation in this sample of ACS patients, this is the first study to report an association between depression and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical ED LOS [4]. We do not yet know why depressed ACS patients are at risk for poor medical outcomes, but Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical delay

to medical inpatient services may be one possible factor, of many, contributing to their poor prognosis. While we found that only depression and time of presentation were associated with individual participants’ LOS, characteristics of each individual and of the specific ED we studied likely influenced our outcome measure. While such influences are obviously multifactorial,

they include severity of presenting illness, availability of floor beds, and availability of “spots” on accepting services. Though there may be some variability due to the presence or absence of a private cardiologist or certain clinical conditions, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical systemic delays in the admission process for patients eligible for inclusion in the parent study (PULSE) are largely administrative in nature and relate to lack of bed capacity or the availability of medical teams. In general, ACS patients are Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical admitted to the Chest Pain Nurse Practitioner service during daytime hours or otherwise to the hospitalist service. Those admitted to cardiology have generally been ruled in for NSTEMI during their stay in the ED or are otherwise complicated. ACS patients are not generally admitted to the CCU unless Liothyronine Sodium they qualify for percutaneous LY317615 coronary intervention (PCI) or are clinically unstable. ACS patients may occasionally be admitted to resident teams other than cardiology. Our knowledge of the admission process, including that through which ACS patients are parsed to floors and provider teams, has not led to a hypothesis that can account for our finding that depressed patients have longer ED LOS. Limitations This study must be interpreted with its limitations in mind. First, these data represent findings from a single, large, urban academic medical center, and as such, the external validity may be limited.