Socioeconomic disparities in prehospital factors and survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

OBJECTIVE: It remains unknown whether patient socioeconomic factors affect interventions and survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), and whether a socioeconomic effect on bystander interventions affects survival. Therefore, this study examined patient socioeconomic disparities in prehospital factors and survival. METHODS: From the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry, patients with OHCA ≥30 years were identified, 2001-2014, and divided into quartiles of household income (highest, high, low, lowest). Associations between income and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and 30-day survival with bystander CPR as mediator were analysed by logistic regression and mediation analysis in private witnessed, public witnessed, private unwitnessed and public unwitnessed arrests, adjusted for confounders. RESULTS: We included 21 480 patients. Highest income patients were younger, had higher education and were less comorbid relative to lowest income patients. They had higher odds for bystander CPR with the biggest difference in private unwitnessed arrests (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.47 to 2.05). For 30-day survival, the biggest differences were in public witnessed arrests with 26.0% (95% CI 22.4% to 29.7%) higher survival in highest income compared with lowest income patients. Had bystander CPR been the same for lowest income as for highest income patients, then survival would be 25.3% (95% CI 21.5% to 29.0%) higher in highest income compared with lowest income patients, resulting in elimination of 0.79% (95% CI 0.08% to 1.50%) of the income disparity in survival. Similar trends but smaller were observed in low and high-income patients, the other three subgroups and with education instead of income. From 2002 to 2014, increases were observed in both CPR and survival in all income groups. CONCLUSION: Overall, lower socioeconomic status was associated with poorer prehospital factors and survival after OHCA that was not explained by patient or cardiac arrest-related factors.

Pregnant women's concerns and antenatal care during COVID-19 lock-down of the Danish society.

INTRODUCTION: Pandemics are known to cause stress and anxiety in pregnant women. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown of the Danish society, pregnant women were considered to be at increased risk, and access to antenatal care changed. METHODS: On 8 April 2020A, a questionnaire was sent to 332 pregnant women previously sampled by general practitioners in two Danish regions. The women were contacted via secured e-mail (e-Boks), and questionnaires were returned until 6 May. RESULTS: The questionnaire was returned by 257 women (77%). More than half believed that they were at a high risk of infection with COVID-19, and a third of the women were concerned about the risk of serious disease - especially for their unborn child. Almost 90% isolated at home most of the time. The majority were worried about possible consequences of the pandemic for antenatal care, but very few had actually missed a scheduled preventive consultation with their general practitioner, and only 15% had missed an appointment with their midwife. The majority of the women preferred normal consultations and found no added safety in shifting the consultation from the normal clinical setting. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have had a major impact on Danish pregnant women. Even so, concerns were more focused on access to care than on the risk of COVID-19 infection. Contacts with the antenatal healthcare system have only been moderately affected. FUNDING: TRYG Foundation and KEU, Region Copenhagen. TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.

Socioeconomic position and one-year mortality risk among patients with heart failure: A nationwide register-based cohort study.

AIMS: We sought to determine whether socioeconomic position affects the survival of patients with heart failure treated in a national healthcare system. METHODS: We linked national Danish registers, identified 145,690 patients with new-onset heart failure between 2000 and 2015, and obtained information on education and income levels. We analysed differences in survival by income quartile and educational level using multiple Cox regression, stratified by sex. We standardised one-year mortality risks according to income level by age, year of diagnosis, cohabitation status, educational level, comorbidities and medical treatment of all patients. We standardised one-year mortality risk according to educational level by age and year of diagnosis. RESULTS: One-year mortality was inversely related to income. In women the standardised average one-year mortality risk was 28.0% in the lowest income quartile and 24.3% in the highest income quartile, a risk difference of -3.8% (95% confidence interval (CI) -4.9% to -2.6%). In men the standardised one-year mortality risk was 26.1% in the lowest income quartile and 20.2% in the highest income quartile, a risk difference of -5.8% (95% CI -6.8% to -4.9%). Similar gradients in standardised mortality were present between the highest and lowest educational levels: -6.6% (95% CI -9.6% to -3.5%) among women and -5.0% (95% CI -6.3% to -3.7%) among men. CONCLUSIONS: Income and educational level affect the survival of patients with heart failure, even in a national health system. Research is needed to investigate how socioeconomic differences affect survival.