Factors Driving COPD-Related Readmissions

A recent study in Lung identified the characteristics of patients readmitted to hospitals for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease- (COPD) related episodes of care.

The researchers, Alicia Cerezo Lajas, MD, of the Respiratory Department, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, and colleagues, sought to “compare characteristics of patients readmitted after discharge by (COPD) exacerbation with those who were not readmitted and to identify factors associated with readmission risk.”

Dr Lajas and colleagues conducted a randomized study of 80 COPD patients identified as high-risk for readmissions based on previous readmission frequency. They categorized the cohort into a group of 40 patients who has more than or 2 COPD admissions, a group of 40 patients with less than 2 readmissions.

The researchers found that patients in the high frequency group were more often males, older, had a higher degree of dyspnea, had worse lung function, and had a high prevalence of diabetes.

Study results showed that the factors driving high readmission frequency among patients with COPD were gender, exacerbator emphysema phenotype, complications during hospitalization, heart failure, and previous length of stay.

“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients with high frequency of readmissions are more frequently male, older, have worse dyspnea, lower lung function, belong more frequent to exacerbator emphysema phenotype, and more frequently diabetics,” the researchers concluded. “The variables that continued to be independent predictors of high frequency of readmissions in the multivariate analysis were sex, phenotype, occurrence of complications during admission, destabilized heart failure, and length of hospital stay.”

—David Costill

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