Few studies have evaluated the relationship between Native American ethnicity and PTB, with one study showing that this group has increased maternal risk factors (e.g., tobacco and alcohol use, hypertension), decreased utilization of prenatal care and a 32.5% higher PTB rate as compared to non-Hispanic whites [ 13].
Consequently, we cannot confirm whether the higher utilization of hypertension-related inpatient services by MA patients is attributed to their unnecessary overutilization of the services or to the unsuccessful prevention of hospital admission due to the low quality of outpatient care for MA patients.
First, we could not obtain definitive conclusions regarding the relationship between the severity of hypertension and TCM utilization.
In the present study, associations between obesity and health care utilization were found independent of hypertension, diabetes, and back problems; thus, these illnesses did not fully mediate associations.
Thus, we suggest a future study to identify the causes of higher utilization of inpatient services by hypertension patients in the MA program.
In addition, hypertension-related healthcare utilization, defined as any outpatient, inpatient, or emergency department visit with a primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary diagnosis of hypertension was tracked for each patient for a one-year follow-up period after his or her index date.
In this study we report on the prevalence of CAM usage among hypertensive patients attending a tertiary hypertension clinic in an urban area, and explore some possible patient characteristics determining CAM utilization.
These characteristics are considered to influence the utilization of inpatient services related with hypertension.
This study elucidated the utilization pattern of CHPs for treating hypertension.
The utilization of inpatient services related to hypertension during the one-year follow-up period was compared between HI and MA patients (Table 2).
