a Dementia Clinical Network NHS England (London Region) , London , England.
b West London Mental Health Trust.
Aging Ment Health. 2019 Jun;23(6):693-697. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2018.1442413. Epub 2018 Mar 12.
To investigate whether referrals to memory services in London reflect the ethnic diversity of the population.
Memory service data including referral rates of BAME was collected from London Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
The expected percentage of BAME referrals using census data was compared against White British population percentages using the chi squared test. We found that within 13,166 referrals to memory services across London, the percentage of people from BAME groups was higher than would be expected (20.3 versus 19.4%; χ = 39.203, d.f. = 1, p < 0.0001) indicating that generally people from BAME groups are accessing memory services. Seventy-nine percent of memory services had more referrals than expected or no significant difference for all BAME groups. When there were fewer referrals then expected, the largest difference in percentage for an individual ethnic group was 3.3%.
Results are encouraging and may indicate a significant improvement in awareness of dementia and help seeking behaviour among BAME populations. Prevalence of dementia in some ethnic groups may be higher so these numbers could still indicate under-referral. Due to the data available we were unable to compare disease severity or diagnosis type.
调查伦敦的记忆服务转介是否反映了人口的种族多样性。
从伦敦临床委托组（CCG）收集了包括 BAME 转介率在内的记忆服务数据。
使用卡方检验将人口普查数据中 BAME 转介的预期百分比与白种英国人的百分比进行了比较。我们发现，在伦敦的 13166 次记忆服务转介中，来自 BAME 群体的人数比例高于预期（20.3%比 19.4%；χ=39.203，自由度=1，p<0.0001），这表明一般来说，来自 BAME 群体的人正在接受记忆服务。79%的记忆服务转介的人数高于预期，或者对于所有 BAME 群体来说没有显著差异。当转介人数低于预期时，各个族裔群体的百分比差异最大为 3.3%。
结果令人鼓舞，可能表明 BAME 人群对痴呆症的认识和寻求帮助的行为有了显著改善。某些族裔群体的痴呆症患病率可能更高，因此这些数字仍可能表明转介不足。由于可用数据的限制，我们无法比较疾病的严重程度或诊断类型。
