Inadequate visits to the emergency department by pregnant women

Abstract

Inadequate emergency visits, which could be resolved in primary care, are an unnecessary expense for the healthcare service. We did a review of all gynaecology and obstetrics emergency visits by pregnant or postpartum women during 2010 and 2011 in order to describe the adequacy of the visits by pregnant women to the emergency service. We defined three levels of adequacy: adequate, moderately adequate, and inadequate. One thousand seven hundred and forty-three visits to the emergency room of gynaecology and obstetrics were studied. These consultation motivations were adequate in 38.9%, moderately adequate in 46.7% and inadequate in 14.4%. This shows that the amount of inadequate and moderately adequate visits to the emergency department could be reduced by 61% by implementing different interventions, and also reducing health spending for emergencies.

Impact statement

• What is already known on this subject: Visits to the emergency room constitute a basic pillar in the hospital structure, and it generates great health expense. Other authors have reported high rates of inadequacy of these visits to the emergency services. They find inadequate visits are associated with young age and female gender among other factors.

• What the results of this study add: Knowing the adequacy of the visits generated by pregnant young women is a starting point for implementing health policies that could reduce these inadequate visits and consequently health expenditure could be reduced.

• What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research: These health policies could consequently reduce health expenditure.

Keywords:

• Adequacy
• emergency visit
• emergency room
• pregnancy
• obstetrics
• inadequate visit

View correction statement:

Correction to: Ferriols Pérez et al., Inadequate visits to the emergency department by pregnant women

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Sergi Mojal (statistical consultant) and Nasheli Jiménez (corrective).

Disclosure statement

We warrant that the article is the authors’ original work. We warrant that the article has not received prior publication and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. On behalf of all co-authors, the corresponding author shall bear full responsibility for the submission. This research has not been submitted for publication nor has it been published in whole or in part elsewhere. We attest to the fact that all authors listed on the title page have contributed significantly to the work, have read the manuscript, attest to the validity and legitimacy of the data and its interpretation, and agree to its submission to the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

All authors declare no conflict of interest, direct or indirect, which may pose a problem for the publication of this article.