Table III.

Rate ratios of secondary health care use by patients, adjusted for comorbidity, gender, and age.

	Emergency visit	Secondary health care costs	Days in hospital
	IRR (CI)	IRR (CI)	IRR (CI)
Distance to the hospital:
0–19 km	1.00	1.00	1.00
20–39 km	0.81 (0.64–1.06)	0.99 (0.93–1.04)	0.95 (0.88–1.03)
over 40 km	0.71 (0.48–1.04)	0.91*** (0.88–0.94)	0.91* (0.84–0.98)
Education level:
1	1.00	1.00
2	1.03 (0.96–1.11)	1.16*** (1.08–1.24)
3	0.98 (0.92–1.04)	1.01 (0.95–1.06)
4	0.87* (0.78–0.98)	0.95 (0.90–1.01)
Income quartile:
1	1.00	1.00	1.00
2	0.99 (0.95–1.04)	0.92*** (0.89–0.96)	0.83* (0.78–0.88)
3	0.84***	0.78*** (0.78–0.90)	0.66* (0.75–0.82)
4	0.86**	0.78*** (0.79–0.95)	0.66* (0.75–0.81)

IRR = incidence rate ratio; CI = confidence interval; km = kilometre; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.