Abstract
The economic recession has been shown to have a negative impact on health services worldwide. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the recent financial crisis in Greece that started in 2009 has affected the attendances in the pediatric emergency department of a University Hospital covering for a large geographical area in Greece. The study was based on a retrospective analysis of the cases presented to the paediatric emergency department and compared the attendances in 2008 (i.e., before the beginning of the economic crisis) with those in 2013 and 2017. Data on demographics and characteristics of emergency department visits, such as timing, reason, and outcome were recorded for each child. There were a total of 35.572 children seeking examination in those three years and data were collected for 5662 (17.36%) of them. Overall, the attendance rate has increased up to 20% without an increase to the hospital admission rates which remained stable throughout the study periods. Between 2008 and 2017, the percentage of febrile children attending the ED increased by 33.8% and of those with respiratory disorders by 63.1%. Our results indicate that the need for pediatric hospital services has changed following the economic crisis which could reflect gaps in the primary care setting and could well also result from financial constraints.
Highlights
The economic crisis appeared in 2007 in the United States of America and after that spread to many European countries, including Greece
We aim to investigate for the first time in Greece the impact of the economic crisis on the pediatric attendances to the pediatric emergency department (ED) of a large tertiary hospital in Greece
We found that the increase in the number of cases attending the ED was solely attributed to children of Greek origin (Figure 2); this is an important finding because it shows that the economic recession affected mainly the indigenous population rather than immigrants or other minor ethnic groups
Summary
The economic crisis appeared in 2007 in the United States of America and after that spread to many European countries, including Greece. Greece has been severely affected by the financial crisis. The latter appears to have a negative impact on the quality of life of the citizens, as the most common effects of the crisis are unemployment, general insecurity, and declining expenses in the public sector, including budget cuts for healthcare [1]. The economic crisis inevitably poses a serious threat to human health and living conditions [2]. Communicable diseases, and suicides are increasingly more common in countries with poor economy including Greece [3–5]. Studies indicate that unemployment and job insecurity may increase the risk for the development of depression, suicide attempts, and suicide [1, 5–8]
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