Citation

Wall SP, Ha ES, Habicht ME, Wawda H, Merchant GL, Ettner SL, Mower WR. Acad. Emerg. Med. 2005; 12(9): 862-868.

Affiliation

UCLA Emergency Medicine Center, USA. stephen.wall@nbhn.net

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1197/j.aem.2005.05.003

PMID

16141021

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Prior evidence suggests that physicians may alter process of care based on race/ethnicity. The objective of this study was to determine whether race/ethnicity predicts whether a patient receives computed tomography of the head (head CT) during evaluation of blunt head injury. METHODS: This was a nonconcurrent cohort study set in an emergency department of a Level 1 trauma center in a university medical center. Consecutive patients presenting with blunt head injury from January 2000 to December 2000 were enrolled. The main outcome measure was whether or not a patient received head CT during evaluation of blunt head injury. RESULTS: The unadjusted probability of receiving head CT was similar among minority (33.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 30.0% to 38.1%) and non-Hispanic white patients (36.4%; 95% CI = 33.5% to 39.3%). After adjusting for important clinical and socioeconomic predictors, minority patients had a probability of receiving head CT 0.84 times as high as that of non-Hispanic whites, but this result was not statistically significant (95% CI = 0.67 to 1.09). CONCLUSIONS: Minority and non-Hispanic white patients may not have significantly different rates of receiving head CT during evaluation of blunt head injury. A multicenter prospective study is necessary to confirm these preliminary findings.

Language: en