Patient deaths during the period of prolonged stay in cases of delayed discharge for nonclinical reasons at a university hospital: a cross sectional study

PeerJ

article

Amada Pellico-López¹  Manuel Herrero-Montes¹  David Cantarero Prieto⁴  Ana Fernández-Feito⁶  Joaquin Cayon-De las Cuevas³  Paula Parás-Bravo¹  María Paz-Zulueta¹ 

[1] Departamento de Enfermería, Universidad de Cantabria;Cantabria Health Service;IDIVAL;IDIVAL, Research Group of Health Economics and Health Services Management–Research Institute Marqués de Valdecilla;Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Cantabria;Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Departamento de Medicina, Universidad de Oviedo;Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias;Departamento de Derecho Privado, Universidad de Cantabria

关键词: Length of stay;    Patient discharge;    Mortality;    Palliative care;    Patient transfer;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.13596

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDelayed discharge for non-clinical reasons also affects patients in need of palliative care. Moreover, the number of people dying in hospitals has been increasing in recent years. Our aim was to describe characteristics of patients who died during prolonged stay, in comparison with the rest of patients with delayed discharge, in terms of length of hospital stay, patient characteristics and the context of care.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional study at a high complexity public hospital in Northern Spain (2007–2015) was conducted. To compare the differential characteristics of the groups of patients died during delayed discharge with the rest, Student’s T test and Pearson’s chi-square test (χ2) were used.ResultsA total of 198 patients died (6.57% of the total), with a mean total stay of 27.45 days and a prolonged stay of 10.69 days. Mean age 77.27 years. These were highly complex cases, 77.79% resided in the urban area, were admitted urgently (95.45%), to internal medicine or oncology wards, and the most common diagnosis was pneumonia. In people with terminal illness, clinicians can better identify when therapeutic possibilities are exhausted and acute hospitalization is not an adequate resource for their needs. Living in an urban area with the availability of palliative care hospital beds is related to the decision to die in hospital.

【 授权许可】

CC BY