Table 3.
Patients’ characteristics and admission data of the most common diagnoses (N = 855)
| Characteristic | Diagnosis, n (%) | P value | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pneumonia | Heart failure | Stroke & TIA | Exacerbation of chronic lung diseases* | Sepsis | Drugs & alcohol | UTI | Others | ||
| Total admission | 120 (14.0) | 118 (13.8) | 68 (8.0) | 54 (6.3) | 39 (4.6) | 36 (4.2) | 35 (4.1) | 385 (45.0) | |
| Age in years (IQR) | 68 (43.5–75) | 70 (61–77) | 67 (56–76) | 67.5 (53–76) | 75 (64–84) | 38 (29.5–47.0) | 71 (48–79) | 57 (35–72) | 0.0043† |
| Female | 49 (40.8) | 61 (51.7) | 28 (41.2) | 31 (57.4) | 17 (43.6) | 7 (19.4) | 22 (62.9) | 186 (48.3) | 0.0034‡ |
| Male | 71 (59.2) | 57 (48.3) | 40 (58.8) | 23 (42.6) | 22 (56.4) | 29 (80.6) | 13 (37.1) | 199 (51.7) | 0.0034‡ |
| Average length of hospital stay in days (IQR) | 6 (3–10) | 5.5 (4–9) | 5.5 (4–8) | 6 (3–8) | 6 (4–10) | 4 (3.0–6.5) | 6 (5–8) | 5 (3–8) | 0.0751† |
| Admissions with appropriate date of discharge | 77 (64.2) | 72 (61.0) | 39 (57.4) | 31 (57.4) | 31 (79.5) | 28 (77.8) | 20 (57.1) | 285 (74.0) | 0.0023‡ |
| Admissions with inappropriate hospital stay | 43 (35.8) | 46 (39.0) | 29 (42.6) | 23 (42.6) | 8 (20.5) | 8 (22.2) | 15 (42.9) | 11 (2.9) | 0.0023‡ |
| Total number of unnecessary hospital stay days (N = 674 days) | 120 (17.8) | 103 (15.3) | 72 (10.7) | 49 (7.3) | 12 (1.8) | 21 (3.1) | 40 (5.9) | 257 (38.1) | 0.0411‡ |
| Average length of inappropriate hospitalisation in days (IQR) | 2 (1–3) | 2 (1–3) | 3 (1–3) | 2 (1–3) | 1 (1–2) | 2 (1.5–4) | 2 (2–3) | 2 (1–3.5) | 0.0043† |
| Mortality | 2 (1.7) | 1 (0.8) | 1 (1.5) | 0 (0.0) | 5 (12.8) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 20 (5.2) | 0.0016‡ |
TIA = transient ischaemic attack; IQR = interquartile range.
*
Including chronic obstructive lung disease, interstitial lung disease, bronchiectasis, bronchial asthma.
†
Using Kruskal–Wallis rank test.
‡
Using Chisquared test.