Chest
Original ResearchAsthmaAsthma Presentations by Adults to Emergency Departments in Alberta, Canada: A Large Population-Based Study
Section snippets
Data Sources
Data are available through the government-funded health plan in the province of Alberta, Canada. All Albertans access health care at no personal cost in a uniform single-payer health system.
The Ambulatory Care Classification System (ACCS)16 is a system for tracking the use of ambulatory care visits to government-funded facilities within Alberta. All ED encounters in > 100 provincial EDs are entered into computerized abstracts that constitute the majority of records. Using a uniform protocol,
General Trends
During the study period, the Alberta adult population increased (Table 1) and the yearly number of Alberta adults that visited the ED for any reason grew from 1,184,473 to 1,338,588. Asthma-related ED visits decreased from 21,218 to 16,301, accounting for 1.8% to 1.2% of the total visits.
Overall, 105,813 ED visits for asthma were made by 48,942 distinct adults, with an average of 2.2 visits per adult (median, 1; IQR, 1 to 2; maximum, 322). The majority of adults (n = 32,351, 66.1%) visited the
Discussion
Using a large provincial database, this study explored the epidemiology of adult asthma seen in > 100 EDs in a Western Province of Canada. With 105,813 ED visits during the 6 years, an adult visited an Alberta ED every 30 min for acute asthma. This study identifies some important epidemiologic trends and outcome information not previously described. First and foremost, this study identified an overall decrease in the rates of presentation over the study period. Despite increasing Alberta
Acknowledgment
The authors greatly appreciate the efforts of Yan Jin and Sylvia Wilson at Alberta Health and Wellness in facilitating access to the data. We appreciate the cooperation of The COPD and Asthma Network of Alberta (www.canahome.org), and especially Ms. Eileen Gresl (COPD and Asthma Network of Alberta Manager) in facilitating involvement of these decision makers.
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This work was performed at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. This work was made possible by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and funding from The Lung Association, Alberta and Northwest Territories.
This study is based in part on data provided by Alberta Health and Wellness. The interpretation and conclusions contained herein are those of the researchers and do not necessarily represent the views of the government of Alberta. Neither the government nor Alberta Health and Wellness express any opinion in relation to this study.
Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).
- 1
Dr. Rowe is supported by the government of Canada as a Twenty-First Century Canada Research Chair.
- 2
Dr. Rosychuk is supported by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research as a population health investigator.
- 3
Dr. Rowe has received research funding and speaking fees from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Abbott; none of the other authors declare any potential conflicts of interest.