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. 2022 Dec 1;17(12):e0278517.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278517. eCollection 2022.

The number of physicians is related to the number of nighttime emergency surgeries in Japan: An ecological study

Yusuke Yamadori  1   2   3 , Tomohiro Hirao  3 , Kanae Kanda  3 , Gotaro Shirakami  1
Affiliations

The number of physicians is related to the number of nighttime emergency surgeries in Japan: An ecological study

Yusuke Yamadori et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Purpose: Increasing the number of physicians per population may improve the quality of medical services, but there are few reports on this aspect in the field of surgery. This study aimed to examine whether the number of physicians is associated with the number of nighttime emergency surgeries, which may be one of the indicators of the quality of medical services in the field of surgery.

Methods: This was a prefecture-based ecological study utilizing open data from Japanese government surveys conducted between 2015 and 2019. The relationship between the number of physicians and the number of nighttime emergency surgeries in 47 prefectures of Japan was evaluated by correlation analysis and panel data regression analysis. The correlation analysis was conducted between the number of physicians per 100,000 population and the number of nighttime emergency surgeries per 100,000 population per year in each prefecture in Japan. In the panel data regression analysis, panel data of the prefectures in Japan from 2015 to 2019 were created. We evaluated whether the number of physicians was related to the number of nighttime emergency surgeries, independent of the number of acute care beds per 100,000 population, population density, and the elderly population ratio.

Results: From the correlation analysis, the correlation coefficient between the number of physicians per 100,000 population and the number of nighttime emergency surgeries per 100,000 population was 0.533 (P < 0.001). In the panel data regression analysis, there was a significant association between the number of physicians per 100,000 population and the number of nighttime emergency surgeries per 100,000 population (P < 0.001). The regression coefficient (95% confidence interval) for the number of physicians per 100,000 population was 0.246 (0.113-0.378).

Conclusion: The number of physicians is associated with the number of nighttime emergency surgeries.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Number of physicians per prefecture.
The presented values are the average numbers of physicians per 100,000 population in each prefecture (2015–2019).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Number of nighttime emergency surgeries in each prefecture.
The presented values are the average numbers of nighttime emergency surgeries per 100,000 population per year in each prefecture (2015–2019).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Correlation coefficient between the number of physicians and nighttime emergency surgeries.
Correlation analysis coefficient between the number of physicians per 100,000 population and the number of nighttime emergency surgeries per 100,000 population per year (n = 47). R, correlation coefficient.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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