Stillbirth is a devastating pregnancy outcome that not only has emotional, psychological, and financial consequences for affected women and families, 1 but also impacts individual healthcare workers, health care networks and the wider society. 2 The global stillbirth rate is estimated to be 18.4 per 1000 births, equating to approximately 2.6 million stillbirths every year. 3 The World Health Organization's (WHO) Every Newborn: An Action Plan to End Preventable Deaths aims to reduce the stillbirth rate to ≤12 per 1000 births by 2030 worldwide. 4 For countries already meeting this target, mostly high-income nations, the Every Newborn initiative aims to reduce equity gaps within the population. 4,5 Despite similar access to healthcare services, 6 inequities in stillbirth rates continue to persist in high income nations, especially in certain minority ethnic groups. For example, women of ethnic minorities who birth in Australia or Europe have stillbirth rates 2-3 times higher than Caucasian women. 7-9 A similar trend is observed
Objectives There is a paucity of information regarding the profile of entire paediatric endocrine clinics and how they are changing. This study aimed to analyse the clinic profile of the Western Australian tertiary paediatric endocrine outpatient service over 10 years and compare to national and international data. Methods Retrospective analysis of the Western Australian Paediatric Endocrine Database (WAPED) between 2007 and 2017 looking at the frequency, proportion and longitudinal change of diagnosis categories, specific diagnoses, and gender breakdown. Results In total, 2,791 endocrine diagnoses were recorded for 2,312 patients. The most frequent reason for referral (22.1% of patients), was for evaluation of abnormalities in thyroid function. The most common diagnosis being hypothyroidism (76.7%). Evaluation of short stature was the reason for referral in 19.2% of patients, 14.6% of whom were diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency. Evaluation of puberty disorders, syndromes with endocrine features and disorders of calcium and phosphate metabolism were other common reasons for clinic referral, seen in 11.3, 9.8 and 8.2% of patients respectively. Between 2007 and 2017, the odds ratio of a thyroid diagnosis increased by 1.07 per year (95% CI: 1.02–1.12), whilst the odds ratio of a short stature diagnosis decreased by 0.91 per year (95% CI: 0.87–0.95). Conclusions The profile of the WAPED is similar to previously published national and international data. The analysis of the profile of diagnoses and its longitudinal change over a ten-year period offer a unique opportunity to guide clinic planning, resource allocation and future research.
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