domingo, 4 de noviembre de 2012

Research Activities, November 2012: Child/Adolescent Health: Hospitalizations for kids with inflammatory bowel disease are frequent and costly

Research Activities, November 2012: Child/Adolescent Health: Hospitalizations for kids with inflammatory bowel disease are frequent and costly


Hospitalizations for kids with inflammatory bowel disease are frequent and costly

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohns disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic conditions that are often debilitating. For children affected by IBD, hospitalizations are frequent and costly, reveals a new study. Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center analyzed data from the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database, which includes information on hospitalizations for IBD in children and adolescents aged 20 years and younger. The data encompass 3,739 hospitals from 38 States.
The researchers looked at the length of hospital stay and accompanying charges. They also looked at patient demographics, insurance type, hospital characteristics, and illness severity. Out of 10,777 IBD-related pediatric hospital visits, 6,599 were for CD and 4,178 were for UC. The average length of stay was 5.63 and 6.66 days, respectively. The total costs were $66.3 million for CD and $48.6 million for UC. Older adolescents (aged 16 to 20 years) had the highest number of IBD admissions. On the other hand, younger patients (up to 5 years old) had the highest average length of stay and highest average cost for CD. In the case of UC, younger adolescents (aged 11 to 15 years) had the highest average length of stay and cost. Costs for IBD were higher in the West and Northeast and slightly higher for Medicaid patients. Other factors related to increasing costs were surgery, severity of illness, and various coexisting conditions, such as alcohol abuse, coagulopathy, peptic ulcer disease/bleeding, and valvular disease.
The study was supported in part by a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS16957) to the Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERT) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. For more information on the CERTs program, visit http://www.certs.hhs.gov.
See "National burden of pediatric hospitalizations for inflammatory bowel disease: Results from the 2006 kids' inpatient database," by Pamela C. Heaton, PhD, Namita L. Tundia, M.S., Nicole Schmidt, Pharm.D., and others in the April 2012 Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 54(4), pp. 477-485.
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