Health problems and social vulnerability in immigrants admitted for an infectious disease:: a case-control study

Background. Health resources needed by immigrants have increased steadily in the last few years. Studying health problems and social vulnerability in immigrants would help to improve the health care quality. Patients and methods. A case-control study performed in the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. Immigrant patients admitted with infectious diseases from October 2002 to September 2003 were included. Controls were paired by age, gender and HIV infection. Clinical (emergency room attendance, days and number of admission to hospital, amount of clinical procedures and drugs used during the admission, etiological and microbiological diagnosis and post-admission control) and social vulnerability variables (social worker consultation, health care card, relatives or friends caregiver, drug use, language barrier and discharge document of the nurse) were analyzed. Results. One hundred and two patients (51 cases and 51 controls, all of them males) were studied. A total of 56% were HIV-1 infected in both groups. The number of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures was higher in the immigrant group (p = 0.02), a lower proportion of patients had a final etiologic diagnosis (82% vs 98%, p = 0.021) and the number of post-discharge controls was lower (55% vs 77%, p = 0.04). Immigrants had a higher social vulnerability index than the Spanish population and 35% could not speak Spanish, French or English. The number of immigrants with health care card was lower (63% vs 94%, p < 0,0001) and a higher number needed to be admitted to a social-health care center after discharge (16% vs 2%, p = 0.01). Discussion. Social vulnerability influences the etiological diagnosis, the number of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures during the admission to the hospital and post-discharge control of immigrant population.