Authors
Abstract
Background and Purpose: Undue admission and staying in hospitals are considered as a weakness of health and treatment systems as well as criteria of performance evaluation، used for determining the efficacy of hospital beds even in developed countries. In addition to increasing the costs، undue staying exposes the patient into nasocomial infections. Therefore، the present study was designed to investigate the rate of undue admission and staying of patients in hospitals of Sabzevar، Iran in 2009 based on the criteria of appropriateness evaluation protocol. Methods and Materials: This descriptive analytical research involving the population of patients admitted to hospitals in Sabzevar، Iran. The sample included 385 patients who were sampled through multi-stage stratified sampling. Each of the three hospitals was selected for a 12-week period، three days per week، two patients form two wards; finally 428 patients were evaluated. Data were collected through tables of admission criteria and appropriate admission of the patients as well as the hospital records. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS 15 using chi-square and Fisher''s exact test. Results: Mean staying in hospitals was 3.23 days but 11.4% of the admissions were inappropriate; orthopedic ward (29.1%) had the highest and gynecological ward (zero) the lowest rate. Undue admission of men (13.9%) was higher than that of women (9.7%); the highest rate of undue admissions was associated with the age range of 41-60. Appropriate admission due to surgery or other invasive procedures (48.8%) had the highest frequency. In the three hospitals evaluated، 0.2% of the admissions were undue، and 99.8% appropriate. Conclusion: The rate of undue admissions is higher than appropriate ones، and the rate undue admissions in the orthopedic ward were the highest and in the gynecological ward the lowest.
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