Table 1.
Patient characteristics and SES of older adult patients visiting the ED
| Characteristics | Total population n=4828 |
Socioeconomic status | P value | ||
| Low n=1660 (33.1%) |
Intermediate n=1640 (34.0%) |
High n=1588 (32.9%) |
|||
| Age, years | |||||
| Mean (SD) | 77 (7.7) | 80 (7.6) | 76 (7.6) | 75 (7.4) | <0.001† |
| Median (IQR)* | 77 (12) | 80 (11) | 76 (12) | 74 (12) | |
| Gender, n (%)* | <0.001 | ||||
| Male | 2149 (44.5) | 618 (38.6) | 759 (46.3) | 772 (48.6) | |
| Female | 2679 (55.5) | 982 (61.4) | 881 (53.7) | 816 (51.4) | |
| CCI, median (IQR) | 1.2 (1.6) | 1.0 (0–8) | 1.0 (0–10) | 1.0 (0–11) | 0.09 |
| Unknown, n (%) | 45 (5.3) | 49 (5.3) | 54 (6.2) | ||
| No of medications, mean (SD)* | 2.5 (4.3) | 3.3 (4.7) | 2.4 (4.2) | 1.9 (3.9) | <0.001‡ |
| Mode of referral*, n (%) | |||||
| General practitioner | 2680 (55.5) | 937 (61.8) | 905 (57.8) | 838 (56.0) | 0.03 |
| Self-referral | 852 (17.6) | 215 (13.4) | 292 (17.8) | 345 (21.7) | <0.001 |
| Ambulance | 664 (13.8) | 244 (15.3) | 237 (14.5) | 183 (11.5) | 0.01 |
| Specialist | 632 (13.1) | 204 (9.6) | 206 (9.9) | 222 (10.8) | 0.75 |
| Living situation*, n (%) | <0.001 | ||||
| Community-dwelling | 4381 (90.7) | 1266 (79.1) | 1556 (94.9) | 1559 (98.2) | |
| Institutionalised | 443 (9.2) | 330 (20.6) | 84 (5.1) | 29 (1.8) | |
| Missing | 4 (100) | 4 (100) | 0 | 0 | |
P values low, intermediate and high SES: using the χ2 test, analysis of variance (post hoc Tukey’s test) and Mann-Whitney U test.
*P<0.05.
†P value low vs intermediate <0.001, low vs high <0.001, intermediate vs high 0.001.
‡P value low vs intermediate 0.001, low vs high <0.001, intermediate vs high 0.042.
CCI, Charlson Comorbidity Index; ED, emergency department; SES, socioeconomic status.