Variation in use of Caesarean section in Norway: An application of spatio-temporal Gaussian random fields.

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Caesarean section (CS) is a medical intervention performed in Norway when a surgical delivery is considered more beneficial than a vaginal. Because deliveries with higher risk are centralized to larger hospitals, use of CS varies considerably between hospitals. We describe how the use of CS varies geographically by municipality. Since indications for CS should have little variation across the relatively homogenous population of Norway, we expect fair use of CS to be evenly distributed across the municipalities.

Methods

Data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway were used in our analyses (810,914 total deliveries, 133,746 CSs, 440 municipalities). We propose a spatial correlation model that takes the location into account to describe the variation in use of CS across

SUBMITTER: Mannseth J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8573683 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature