Influence of socioeconomic factors on medically unnecessary ambulance calls

Kawakami, Chihiro; Ohshige, Kenji; Kubota, Katsuaki; Tochikubo, Osamu

doi:10.1186/1472-6963-7-120

BMC Health Services Research

Table 3 Influence of socioeconomic factors on the decision to call an ambulance in unnecessary situations.

From: Influence of socioeconomic factors on medically unnecessary ambulance calls

Scenario 1	Marginal effect	95% CI		P-value
Price	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.026^#
Gender	0.024	0.000	0.048	0.046
Age	0.039	0.031	0.046	0.000
Family (living alone)	0.055	0.002	0.107	0.015
Household income	0.002	-0.006	0.011	0.614
Possess a car	-0.044	-0.075	-0.014	0.002
History of ambulance use	0.015	-0.009	0.038	0.216
Hesitation to call an ambulance	-0.054	-0.078	-0.031	0.000
Knowledge of primary emergency medical center open at night	-0.012	-0.038	0.014	0.360
Knowledge of emergency medical information center	0.001	-0.030	0.032	0.952
Knowledge of private patient transport service	0.033	-0.017	0.083	0.148
Log likelihood	-512
Pseudo R²	0.174
Chi-square	215.6
	(P < 0.001)
Scenario 2	Marginal effect	95% CI		P-value
Price	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.132
Gender	0.047	0.020	0.074	0.001
Age	0.025	0.017	0.033	0.000
Family (living with at least one child)	0.009	-0.018	0.037	0.504
Household income	-0.016	-0.026	-0.007	0.001
Possess a car	-0.071	-0.105	-0.037	0.000
History of ambulance use	0.039	0.012	0.065	0.004
Hesitation to call an ambulance	-0.030	-0.056	-0.004	0.027
Knowledge of primary emergency medical center open at night	-0.042	-0.072	-0.012	0.005
Knowledge of emergency medical information center	0.001	-0.035	0.036	0.972
Knowledge of private patient transport service	0.015	-0.036	0.066	0.550
Log likelihood	-520
Pseudo R²	0.148
Chi-square	180.3
	(P < 0.001)
Scenario 3	Marginal effect	95% CI		P-value
Price	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.326
Gender	0.030	0.013	0.048	0.001
Age	0.013	0.007	0.018	0.000
Family (living with at least one elderly person)	0.013	-0.026	0.051	0.484
Household income	-0.006	-0.011	0.000	0.060
Possess a car	-0.023	-0.045	-0.002	0.018
History of ambulance use	-0.001	-0.018	0.015	0.860
Hesitation to call an ambulance	-0.024	-0.041	-0.007	0.006
Knowledge of primary emergency medical center open at night	-0.024	-0.045	-0.004	0.013
Knowledge of emergency medical information center	0.013	-0.013	0.040	0.276
Knowledge of private patient transport service	0.014	-0.021	0.050	0.374
Log likelihood	-313
Pseudo R²	0.120
Chi-square	85.7
	(P < 0.001)

CI: confidence interval.
# The marginal effect of price (= -8.16 × 10^-7, standard error; 3.65 × 10^-7, z-score; -2.22) was very small but statistically significant in Scenario 1.

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ISSN: 1472-6963

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