Continuity of primary care and avoidable hospitalization in a young population with asthma: a population-based cohort...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Limited evidence exists on the impact of continuity of care (COC) for asthma patients.
• Existing studies often suffer from low to moderate quality, necessitating robust research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between relational continuity of care in primary settings and asthma-related hospitalizations in children.
• To utilize a robust methodology to analyze this relationship within a large pediatric population.

Main Methods:

• Population-based cohort study using South Korea's national claims database.
• Included 136,296 children newly diagnosed with asthma (2015-2016).
• Classified patients into high, medium, and low continuity groups using the continuity of care index (COCI) for a two-year follow-up.

Main Results:

• 10,922 patients (8.01%) were hospitalized over two years.
• Hospitalization rates were 5.59% (high COC), 6.98% (medium COC), and 8.48% (low COC).
• Low and medium continuity groups showed significantly higher adjusted hazard ratios for hospital admission (aHR=1.30 and aHR=1.14, respectively) compared to the high continuity group.

Conclusions:

• Increased continuity of primary care is associated with reduced hospitalizations in young asthma patients.
• Findings were consistent across sensitivity and subgroup analyses.
• Highlights the importance of consistent primary care relationships for managing pediatric asthma effectively.