Socioeconomic gradients in admission to coronary or intensive care units among Australians presenting with non-traumatic chest pain in emergency departments

Table 1 Patient characteristics and emergency department visit outcome on first presentation by quintiles of the relative index of inequality of socioeconomic disadvantage

	All N = 53,177	RII_1 Highest SES N = 10,815	RII_2 N = 10,666	RII_3 N = 10,994	RII_4 N = 10,831	RII_5 Lowest SES N = 9871	P value^
Median age of study sample,%
53 years or younger	50.4	49.3	52.3	49.7	54.0	46.5	< 0.001
54 years or older	49.6	50.7	47.7	50.3	46.0	53.5	< 0.001
Female sex, %	48.8	49.3	49.2	48.5	49.1	47.9	0.2
Region of birth,%
Oceania	55.1	58.7	60.0	59.7	56.7	39.3	< 0.001
Europe / Americas	23.8	22.0	21.4	24.9	21.3	29.7
Asia / Middle East	15.8	14.2	13.6	10.9	16.7	24.5
All other	5.3	5.1	5.1	4.6	5.3	6.4
English spoken at home, %	90.4	94.0	94.0	92.0	91.5	79.8	< 0.001
Arrival to ED by ambulance, %	44.0	40.3	46.8	45.8	43.7	43.4	< 0.001
Nurse Triage presentation urgency score, %
Resuscitation / Emergency	44.6	46.2	45.2	44.8	43.9	42.9	< 0.001
Urgent	43.5	42.6	43.4	43.5	43.7	44.3
Semi-urgent / Non-urgent	11.9	11.2	11.4	11.7	12.4	12.8
ED visit outcome, %
Admitted to CCU / ICU	13.2	11.8	13.4	13.8	13.7	13.4	< 0.001
Admitted to a medical ward	15.9	16.1	16.6	15.8	14.9	16.1
Died in the ED	0.4	0.4	0.6	0.3	0.4	0.5
Discharged home	70.5	71.8	69.4	70.1	71.0	69.9

Abbreviations: CCU coronary care unit, ED emergency department, ICU intensive care unit, RII relative index of inequality, SES socio-economic status
^ Proportions were compared using chi-square tests and means were compared using one-way ANOVA tests

ISSN: 1471-227X