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Language and utilisation of emergency care in Q ueensland
Author(s) -
Mahmoud Ibrahim,
Hou XiangYu,
Chu Kevin,
Clark Michele
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
emergency medicine australasia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1742-6723
pISSN - 1742-6731
DOI - 10.1111/1742-6723.12017
Subject(s) - medicine , medical emergency
Objective To compare access and utilisation of EDs in Q ueensland public hospitals between people who speak only E nglish at home and those who speak another language at home. Methods A retrospective analysis of a Q ueensland statewide hospital ED dataset ( ED I nformation S ystem) from 1 J anuary 2008 to 31 D ecember 2010 was conducted. Access to ED care was measured by the proportion of the state's population attending EDs . Logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the relationships between ambulance use and language, and between hospital admission and language, both after adjusting for age, sex and triage category. Results The ED utilisation rate was highest in E nglish only speakers (290 per 1000 population), followed by A rabic speakers (105), and lowest among G erman speakers (30). Compared with E nglish speakers, there were lower rates of ambulance use in C hinese (odds ratio 0.50, 95% confidence interval, 0.47–0.54), V ietnamese (0.87, 0.79–0.95), A rabic (0.87, 0.78–0.97), S panish (0.56, 0.50–0.62), I talian (0.88, 0.80–0.96), H indi (0.61, 0.53–0.70) and G erman (0.87, 0.79–0.90) speakers. Compared with E nglish speakers, G erman speakers had higher admission rates (odds ratio 1.17, 95% confidence interval, 1.02–1.34), whereas there were lower admission rates in C hinese (0.90, 0.86–0.99), A rabic (0.76, 0.67–0.85) and S panish (0.83, 0.75–0.93) speakers. Conclusion This study showed that there was a significant association between lower utilisation of emergency care and speaking languages other than E nglish at home. Further researches are needed using in‐depth methodology to investigate if there are language barriers in accessing emergency care in Q ueensland.