title: Hospital bed usage by people with HIV disease: experience in a provincial setting.
abstract: In order to describe hospital bed usage by people with HIV disease in a provincial setting, a retrospective analysis of admissions to hospital wards in Oxford was undertaken for people admitted to hospital with all HIV-related illnesses or complications of HIV-related treatment. A total of 83 people were identified as having been admitted to hospital between January 1986 and the end of August 1990. Average length of hospital stay, the number of admissions per observed person-year and the in-patient days per observed person-year decreased. Of the 2,446 days spent in hospital, 913 were by people with an AIDS diagnosis; 1,533 days were spent by people who did not fulfil the World Health Organisation/Centers for Disease Control (WHO/CDC) classification for AIDS but who were admitted because of their HIV disease. AIDS is an end-point of infection with HIV. Pre-AIDS morbidity, a spectrum of illness of increasing severity from minor illness up to the point of WHO/CDC level AIDS, is a major determinant of hospital care and has previously been underestimated. In order to calculate the best estimates of hospital care needed, HIV disease should be regarded as a single entity and the artificial barrier dividing HIV illnesses from AIDS should be discarded.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Health Care Sciences, Medical School, University, Newcastle upon Tyne.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burch
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Mayon-White
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001509:Bed Occupancy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies