Deprivation influences the emergency admission rate of ambulatory care sensitive conditions

Abstract

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.