Ambulatory care sensitive condition hospitalizations in three departments of Paraguay, 2019

Abstract

Introduction: Avoidable hospitalizations for sensitive conditions in primary health care are a direct indicator of the amount of potentially preventable hospital activity, through timely and effective care at the first level of care. Objective: To determine the frequency of hospitalizations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (CSCA) in 3 departments of Paraguay, year 2019. Methodology: The study was descriptive and cross-sectional, using the data recorded in the Hospital Discharge information system, which contains the records of hospitalizations of people in the health establishments. All those hospitalized in the three selected departments during the year 2019 were taken. The list of diagnoses of preventable hospitalizations was taken as a reference to those proposed by PAHO in the Compendium of impact indicators and intermediate results classified with the ICD-10. Results: Hospitalizations for a sensitive condition in primary care were 4,717 hospitalizations, which represent 20% of all hospitalizations. Within each department, no great differences are observed in terms of percentage. This indicates that 20% of hospitalizations could have been resolved at the first level of care with sufficient resolution capacity to adequately attend to health promotion, prevention and timely management of health conditions. Conclusion: There is a wide difference in hospitalizations of female and male patients. Female patients represented the majority, compared to men in all three departments. The department with the highest rate of hospitalization was Misiones.