The Role of Health Literacy in the Effective Utilization of Emergency Medical Services: A Focus on 112 Emergency Health Services

Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the patients transported by ambulance to the emergency department (ED) of a large metropolitan hospital and to draw attention to the effect of health literacy on whether 112 emergency health services (112 EHS) is used effectively or not. Materials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional retrospective study conducted by scanning the data of patients admitted to the ED from January 1 to December 31, 2023. Patient records were analyzed for demographic characteristics, ED diagnoses, type of cases (forensic, emergency, etc.) nationality, services provided in the ED, and hospitalization status. Descriptive statistics were presented as frequency distributions for categorical variables. The chi-square (χ2) test was used to compare categorical data, while the Mann-Whitney U test was applied for ordinal variables. Results: During the study period, 36,235 patients were transported to the ED via ambulance. Among them, 52% were male and 48% were female. The mean age was 46±24 years. Regarding the type of cases, 11.7% were forensic cases, 10.3% were traffic accidents, 1.7% were work-related injuries, 0.4% were natural disasters, and 0.8% were emergency conditions. Within one year, 3.182 patients (10.2%) had repeated ambulance admissions. Among forensic cases transported by ambulance, 1b303 patients (30%) required hospitalization. Furthermore, 61.2% of these patients were admitted to the toxicology intensive care unit. Conclusion: Enhancing public health literacy is a crucial factor in ensuring the more effective use of 112 EHS. The increase in public education initiatives, training programs, and social media content on emergency medical services is essential to achieve this goal.