Outcome of emergency obstetric cases in relation to the referral pattern at a tertiary hospital in Puducherry: A cross-sectional descriptive study

Background: Referral is a crucial aspect of emergency obstetric care in India. Adequate and timely referrals help to improve the quality of health-care services and maternal and child well-being. Objectives: Studies are needed to assess the outcome of obstetric mothers' emergency admissions in relation to referral patterns. Materials and Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional descriptive study was done among obstetric patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital's emergency department (emergency medical service [EMS]). A retrospective cohort was analyzed. The data were entered in Epicollect5 and imported to STATA software version 16 for analysis. Results: A total of 685 mothers admitted to EMS were selected for the study, with a mean (standard deviation) age of 26.5 years (4.2). Among the study participants, 181 (26.4%) were referred from other institutions, 382 (55.8%) were nonreferral who received antenatal checkups in the tertiary hospital, and 122 (17.8%) were self-referral who had not received any antenatal checkup in the tertiary hospital. The adverse fetal outcome was 1.88 (1.21-2.95) times higher in the referred mothers compared to the self-referral. Conclusion: We observed that a higher percentage of referrals were from the primary health centers. This kind of direct referral to tertiary care hospitals can be avoided by availing the emergency obstetric services at secondary hospitals to prevent adverse fetal outcomes and unnecessary referrals to the tertiary hospital.