IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0234112.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Clinical complexity and hospital admissions in the December holiday period

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Vincenzo Lenti
  • Catherine Klersy
  • Alice Silvia Brera
  • Valeria Musella
  • Irene Benedetti
  • Lucia Padovini
  • Mariella Ciola
  • Gabriele Croce
  • Alessia Ballesio
  • Maria Fortunata Gorgone
  • Giampiera Bertolino
  • Antonio Di Sabatino
  • Gino Roberto Corazza

Abstract

Background: Christmas and New Year’s holidays are risk factors for hospitalization, but the causes of this “holiday effect” are uncertain. In particular, clinical complexity (CC) has never been assessed in this setting. We therefore sought to determine whether patients admitted to the hospital during the December holiday period had greater CC compared to those admitted during a contiguous non-holiday period. Methods: This is a prospective, longitudinal study conducted in an academic ward of internal medicine in 2017–2019. Overall, 227 consecutive adult patients were enrolled, including 106 cases (mean age 79.4±12.8 years, 55 females; 15 December-15 January) and 121 controls (mean age 74.3±16.6 years, 56 females; 16 January-16 February). Demographic characteristics, CC, length of stay, and early mortality rate were assessed. Logistic regression analyses for the evaluation of independent correlates of being a holiday case were computed. Results: Cases displayed greater CC (17.7±5.5 vs 15.2±5.9; p = 0.001), with greater impact of socioeconomic (3.51±1.7 vs 2.9±1.7; p = 0.012) and behavioral (2.36±1.6 vs 1.9±1.8; p = 0.01) CC components. Cases were also significantly frailer according to the Edmonton Frail Scale (8.0±2.8 vs 6.4±3.1; p

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Vincenzo Lenti & Catherine Klersy & Alice Silvia Brera & Valeria Musella & Irene Benedetti & Lucia Padovini & Mariella Ciola & Gabriele Croce & Alessia Ballesio & Maria Fortunata Gorgone & Giamp, 2020. "Clinical complexity and hospital admissions in the December holiday period," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-10, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0234112
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234112
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234112&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0234112?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Phillips, David & Barker, Gwendolyn E. & Brewer, Kimberly M., 2010. "Christmas and New Year as risk factors for death," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1463-1471, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Birg & Anna Goeddeke, 2016. "Christmas Economics—A Sleigh Ride," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1980-1984, October.
    2. Peña, Pablo A., 2015. "A not so happy day after all: Excess death rates on birthdays in the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 59-66.
    3. Tina Ho & Andrew Noymer, 2017. "Summertime, and the livin’ is easy: Winter and summer pseudoseasonal life expectancy in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(45), pages 1445-1476.
    4. Gabriele M. Lepori, 2021. "A nonrandom walk down Hollywood boulevard: Celebrity deaths and investor sentiment," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 591-613, August.
    5. Chunzhou Mu & Jane Hall, 2023. "Marital status and hospital use in older adults," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 185-213, June.
    6. Frans Willekens, 2013. "Chronological objects in demographic research," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 28(23), pages 649-680.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0234112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.