RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Deprivation influences the emergency admission rate of ambulatory care sensitive conditions
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 119
OP 123
DO 10.7861/clinmedicine.16-2-119
VO 16
IS 2
A1 Richard Conway
A1 Deirdre O’Riordan
A1 Declan Byrne
A1 Sean Cournane
A1 Seamus Coveney
A1 Bernard Silke
YR 2016
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/16/2/119.abstract
AB Ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) are a group of conditions judged to be suitable for healthcare efficiency initiatives to reduce the rate of hospital admissions. All emergency medical admissions to an Irish hospital between 2002 and 2013 were assessed for ACSCs. They were categorised by quintile of deprivation index and evaluated against hospital admission rate. Univariable and multivariable risk estimates were calculated, using logistic regression or zero-truncated Poisson regression. There were 66,861 admissions in 36,214 patients. ACSCs represented 66.4% of admissions. The rate of ACSC admissions increased with deprivation index, Q1 10.4 (95% confidence interval (CI) 10.2–10.5), Q2 17.3 (95% CI 17.2–17.5), Q3 34.0 (95% CI 33.7–34.2), Q4 30.2 (95% CI 30.0–30.4) and Q5 44.5 (95% CI 43.8– 45.1) (p<0.001), corresponding incidence rate ratios compared with Q1 were: Q2 1.67 (95% CI 1.64–1.70), Q3 3.28 (95% CI 3.22–3.33), Q4 2.92 (95% CI 2.87–2.97) and Q5 4.29 (95% CI 4.20–4.39) (p<0.001). ACSCs are common in acute medical admissions and are strongly influenced by the underlying social demographics of the population.