Table 1.

Selected Patient Characteristics by Preventable Hospitalization

Variables	Not Preventable (n=230)†	Preventable (n=170)†	P<	ESS‡
Age	61.5 (13.6)	59.2 (12.4)	.05	13.0
SF-12 mental component score* (0 to 100)	51.8 (11.6)	46.9 (13.1)	.002	19.2
Body mass index* (kg/m2)	27.1 (6.2)	25.8 (6.3)	.06	13.0
Literacy level			.70	3.6
>Eighth grade	43.5	40.6
Seventh to eighth grade	33.0	33.5
Fourth to sixth grade	18.3	17.1
<Fourth grade	5.2	8.8
At least 1 binge drinking episode in past 30 d	9.6	32.4	.001	22.8
Cigarette use	35.6	52.3	.002	16.7
Factors related to health care utilization
Greater than 3 clinic visits in past year*	72.6	58.2	.003	16.7
At least 1 person as personal doctor	47.0	37.1	.053	9.9
VA able to serve all medical needs	91.7	85.3	.052	6.4
Factors related to medication adherence
Forgot to take medication			.02	12.3
All, most, or some of the time	19.7	31.0
A little or none of the time	81.3	69.0
Always follow medication instructions	82.6	71.0	.007	11.6
Factors related to social support
Always have social support for medical care*	33.5	20.6	.02	12.9
Club or organizational memberships	0.7 (1.2)	0.6 (1.7)	.02	11.6
People talked to in typical week	13.3 (10.6)	12.8 (11.3)	.18	10.0

^*Variables had an ESS that was lower in jack-knife validity analysis compared with training analysis, suggesting that the level of classification accuracy in training may not cross-generalize when it is used to classify an independent random sample using the cutpoints or category assignments reported presently.

^†Summary values given are percentages or means and standard deviation in parentheses. Data presented as percentages are the number of patients with the characteristic divided by the N for that variable.

^‡ESS, effect strength for sensitivity is a standardized measure of classification accuracy, where 0=accuracy expected by chance, and 100=perfect, errorless classification.

ESS, Effect strength for sensitivity.