Delays in seeking and reaching care for injured patients in four low-income and middle-income countries: a cohort study

Background Injury burden is high in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Delays in accessing definitive care after injury beyond the ‘golden’ hour or 2 hours worsen outcomes. We examined delays in accessing definitive healthcare after injury and whether their magnitude and associations differ across four diverse LMICs: Ghana, Pakistan, Rwanda and South Africa. Methods Across 19 hospitals providing definitive care for injuries in urban or rural settings, we enrolled patients with moderate to severe injuries who were hospitalised for at least 12 hours. The time between injury and admission for definitive care and perceived reasons for delays in seeking and reaching care were captured. The association between more than 1-hour delay to reaching definitive care and age, sex, education, wealth, injury mechanism or severity, prior healthcare encounters, ambulance transport, the hospital type and catchment area was evaluated in a multivariable model. Patients’ perceived reasons for delay in seeking and reaching care were described. Findings were compared between countries. Result Data on delays were available for 8331 patients, of whom 57.3% experienced delays exceeding 1 hour. Prior healthcare encounter before definitive care showed the strongest association with delay (OR: 8.44, 95% CI 7.41 to 9.60). Delays were associated with older age, less education and wealth, greater injury severity, urban (vs rural) catchment area, ambulance transport, injury mechanism due to falls or fire (vs road traffic collision) and tertiary (vs secondary) hospital admission in the adjusted model. Ghana and Rwanda showed the lowest and highest odds of delays compared with South Africa, respectively. Only 18.8% of patients perceived being delayed, most citing unawareness of urgency and ambulance unavailability as reasons. Conclusions Most injured patients do not arrive at definitive care within the critical golden hour, with delays inequitably affecting the population. Improvements in pathways to care are needed to reduce delays across healthcare systems.