TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Non-urgent accident and emergency department use as a socially shared custom: a qualitative study
JO  - Emergency medicine journal
A1  - Keizer Beache, Simone
A1  - Guell, Cornelia
SP  - 47
EP  - 51
VL  - 33
IS  - 1
N2  - OBJECTIVE: We explored attitudes of non-urgent accident and emergency department (AED) patients in the middle-income healthcare setting Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) in the Caribbean to understand how and why they decide to seek emergency care and resist using primary care facilities. <br><br>METHODS: In 2013, we conducted 12 semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of non-urgent AED users from a variety of social backgrounds. Verbatim transcripts were analysed with a grounded theory approach. <br><br>RESULTS: In this study, we found, first, that participants automatically chose to visit the AED and described this as a locally shared custom. Second, the healthcare system in SVG reinforced this habitual use of the AED, for example, by health professionals routinely referring non-urgent cases to the AED. Third, there was also some deliberate use; patients took convenience and the systemic encouragement into account to determine that the AED was the most appropriate choice for healthcare. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the attitudes and habits of the Vincentian non-urgent patient are major determinants of their AED use and are intricately linked to local, socially shared practices of AED use. <br><br>FINDINGS show that health services research should reconsider rational choice behaviour models and further explore customs of health-seeking.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1472-0205
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2014-204039
ID  - ref1
ER  -