title: Consumption of hospital resources for treatment of gastrointestinal diseases in a community.
abstract: The consumption of hospital resources for treatment of gastrointestinal diseases in six counties in Norway (population 1.07 million) has been estimated based on hospital admission data. The number of discharges for men (1345/100 000 inhabitants) is about 30% higher than for female patients (1021/100 000 inhabitants) whereas the number of bed-days is only 8% higher, reflecting a difference in length of stay of about 2 days. The proportion of digestive diseases compared with the total somatic care varies between 8.8--10.3% depending upon the method of estimation. The consumption of resources is both age and sex dependent with an almost exponential age-dependence for patients older than 14, and with a male dominance for all age groups except for patients between 15 and 24 years of age. The proportion of digestive diseases compared with the total somatic care shows also sex- and age-group variations with high proportion (i e high consumption) for men in productive ages, whereas women in the same age groups have a considerably lower consumption. A marked increase in hospitalization time is found for older patients. Relatively low mortality rates are found for gastrointestinal diseases. Regional differences in consumption are revealed with differences in discharge rates of up to 50%, in bed-days up to 70% and with differences up to 20% for length of stay.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000191:economics* / Q000401:mortality; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D010343:Patient Admission; D010351:Patient Discharge; D012737:Sex Factors