Area deprivation and attachment to a general practitioner through centralized waiting lists: a cross-sectional study in Quebec, Canada

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for population under study (patients attached to a GP through centralized waiting list (n = 24, 958); patients waiting on centralized waiting lists (n = 49, 901), June 2013 to May 2015)

Descriptive statistics		All CWL patients (waiting for attachment & attached) (%)	Patients waiting for attachment (%)	Patients attached to a GP (%)	P (Chi-2 or t-test)
Material deprivation^a	Very advantaged	28.16	30.60	23.27	< 0.0001
	Advantaged	21.96	23.16	19.56
	Medium	17.37	17.05	18.01
	Disadvantaged	18.46	17.55	20.28
	Very disadvantaged	14.06	11.65	18.88
Social deprivation^b	Very advantaged	16.59	18.82	12.13	< 0.0001
	Advantaged	13.12	14.03	11.30
	Medium	15.28	16.08	13.67
	Disadvantaged	22.76	21.57	25.12
	Very disadvantaged	32.25	29.49	37.78
Sex (%)	Female	53.58	54.07	52.60	0.0001
Mean age (s.d.)^c		42.13 (22.11)	42.56 (19.03)	41.29 (27.24)	< 0.0001
Local health network (%)	A	18.01	23.03	8.23	< 0.0001
	B	12.37	10.58	15.95
	C	24.30	31.16	10.59
	D	28.64	26.56	32.80
	E	16.59	8.67	32.42
Medical vulnerability (%)^d	Vulnerable	31.38	23.95	46.23	< 0.0001
Medical vulnerability (%)^d	Non-vulnerable	68.62	76.05	53.77	< 0.0001
Clinical priority (%)^e	1 (most urgent)	1.95	0.37	4.62	< 0.0001
	2	15.86	6.33	31.90
	3	12.57	8.63	19.22
	4	25.54	27.06	22.98
	5 (least urgent)	44.08	57.61	21.29
Number of health conditions (%)^f	None	72.48	79.20	59.04	< 0.0001
	1 condition	18.28	13.56	27.71
	≥2 conditions	9.24	7.24	13.25
Health conditions (%)	Mental health^g	6.23	5.39	7.89	< 0.0001
	Major depression	1.91	1.47	2.80	< 0.0001
	Addiction	0.81	0.75	0.91	0.02
	Active cancer	3.90	2.29	7.11	< 0.0001
	Intellectual disability	0.48	0.40	0.62	< 0.0001
	Diabetes	5.35	3.52	9.02	< 0.0001
	COPD	3.86	3.19	5.22	< 0.0001
Mean wait time (s.d.)^c,h		–	458 (359)	284 (350)	< 0.0001

^aArea-based material deprivation
^bArea-based social deprivation
^cs.d.: standard deviation
^dMedical vulnerability is determined by the presence of at least one of 19 medical vulnerability codes, as pre-determined by the RAMQ, or being older of 70 year old
^eClinical priority level as assigned by the CWLs’ nurses (ranging from Priority 1 – most urgent, to Priority 5 – least urgent)
^fNumber of medical vulnerability codes present
^gMental health problems excluding major depression
^hMean wait time in days: For patients waiting for attachment – number of days between CWL registration and May 31st, 2015; For patients attached to a GP – number of days between CWL registration and attachment. Not provided for all patients because measured differently for each group

ISSN: 1475-9276